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Megalopolis is a Fascinating Mess That’s Impossible to Look Away From | The Rewind Podcast
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This week on The Rewind, Darren, Jack, and Marty discuss Megalopolis, The Substance, Wild Robot, and whatever else they've been watching.
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Introduction and Podcast Support
00:00:00
Speaker
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00:00:34
Speaker
Hi
Discussing Megalopolis and Live Podcasting
00:00:35
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everybody, welcome to The Rewind. um We had to, um like Eric, our producer had to literally check us because we got too busy talking about Megalopolis to do the podcast about Megalopolis. I would just do this live out here. We were like quizzing each other to see whether we had seen the same movie and also whether we could remember things that happened. It's possible we did.
00:00:58
Speaker
Here's different cuts of this movie. I remember
Coppola's Unique Live Editing Approach
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like when Francis Ford Coppola released Twix, I believe. He was live editing it in certain screenings. Like a DJ in the corner of the room. So if a character got like a strong reaction, that character got a subplot. Whereas if a character got a cold reaction, he was like, well, you're out of the rest of the movie, but in real time. Not a good way to make a movie, but a neat way to make a movie.
00:01:20
Speaker
um No, I know somebody who saw like a New York screening of that and was like, I am glad I did it once. No, I never want to see a movie like that again. There's reasons. There's reasons we don't make movies like this. exactly hello Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the Rewind podcast. It's episode number six
Megapolis Review and Cannes Reception
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for Tuesday, October 1st.
00:01:42
Speaker
I'm Marty Sleevia here with Darren Mooney, Jack Packard, and producer Eric. ah Yeah, and as you can see, our our big topic today is going to be Megalopolis, the new movie from the iconic Francis Ford Coppola with a star-studded cast that that premiered ah ah earlier this summer at the Cannes Film Festival where Darren was able to see it. It is finally in theaters across the country now where Jack and I were able to see it. And it is one of the most ah baffling and fascinating messes of a movie that is also like transfixing and impossible to look away from. it's It's
Unconventional Storytelling and Themes
00:02:15
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a very beautiful car crash that I'm very excited for us to chat about. So we'll be we'll be chatting about Megalopolis. I'd say
00:02:23
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It's gonna be non-spoiler or spoiler, but I was saying this right before we went live. I'm not sure this is a movie that can be spoiled and I'm not trying to be like pithy or anything. It's just like what happens doesn't matter.
00:02:35
Speaker
Nobody can tell you what Megalopolis is. You have to experience it for yourself. A little bit. Right. We, we could tell you exactly the entire story aid, you know, like A to B to to Z to back to A to B. Uh, and it still would not spoil for you the experience of watching Megalopolis. So it is spoiler free because it cannot be spoiled. And it's ah it's also that thing that kind of reminded me of ah when you're watching a, if you're like watching something and kind of on your phone at the same time, and you look down at your phone and then you look back up and you're like, shit, how did we get here? It's like that, except I was in a theater and I never looked at my phone.
Clint Eastwood's New Film and Cinema Reflections
00:03:13
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ah ah like so there yeah There are characters who like die during montages, there are characters who die during monologues, there are characters who die and then just do not appear in the movie at all and is no reference to their dying. It is a really interesting movie in terms of like just basic storytelling construction.
00:03:34
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Yeah, it's ah yeah it's it's it's fascinating. So we'll be talking about that and then some other stuff we've been we've been watching. Darren and I saw the substance, which is a lot to chew on there. Jack, you saw Wow Robot, which I'm very excited about, which I know is getting a lot of, not only animated Oscar buzz, but like possibly a yes picture.
00:03:51
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um There's ten of them. It's a weak year, like not not to not to dunk on Wild Robot, which I have not seen yet and here is spectacular. Let's just say that Megalopolis was being talked as a potential Best Picture candidate and here's where we are now, Jack. and It sounds like Joker 2 is not going to hit the same heights as Joker 1.
00:04:12
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Uh, hello. Speaking of geriatric directors, uh, possibly directing their last movie, the, uh, just like an hour ago, the trailer for jury number, number two, just went live, which is Clint Eastwood's possible final movie. And let me tell you, compare that to Megalopolis. It just looks like a regular old movie. He made what looks like a really nice little like mystic river kind of like character piece of the thriller. And I'm like, Oh, this seems nice.
00:04:37
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Yeah. Again, Clint Eastwood, whose every movie for the past 20 years has felt like it could be Clint Eastwood's last movie to be fair. But yeah, like I have to admit, I was a bit surprised by like drawer two, because like I was expecting, you know, the premise of the movie, just this is the light spoiler free premise of the movie. It's in the trailer. so Yeah. It's in the trailer. The idea is like a guy ends up on a jury and he knows that the person charged with the crime is innocent. And how does he know that? Because he committed the crime. And you're like, that sounds like the pulpiest, like most nineties-esque thriller imaginable. But then you watch the trailer and the trailer is like, we're going to conduct a solid and mature meditation on responsibility and shame and the social fabric of modern American. I'm like, I am. I love you Clint so much. that's like Yeah. yeah
00:05:24
Speaker
No, no one's going back to the club in that movie. Um, but yeah, we'll be chatting, chat about all that stuff. And, and Darren will
Chris Christofferson's Legacy in Film
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also watch a bunch of other stuff, which I'm excited to to talk about, including Salem's a lot. And I, for the love of guys, is either, if it's good, we could talk about it. If it's bad, just, we're not going to talk about it. Are we talking about it?
00:05:43
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We could kind of talk about it. Okay.
00:05:48
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it's It's a solid, like it's a three star film. I have some very serious problems with it, but I had a good time with it. Like that's of where yeah yeah those before we jump into Megalopolis, the one news that I just wanted to touch on was ah the, the sad and death of Chris Christofferson, the musician, the, the actor, the activist, uh, best, I mean, for,
00:06:09
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probably our audience, the best known for playing Whistler in the Blade trilogy, but also was in the opposite Barbara Streisand in the 70s. Star is born. One of the great movies directed by cocaine. Alice, don't you live here anymore, Martin Scorsese? I mean, I feel like we're talking about a, Megoopolis might be the new best movie directed by Okay, so who knows? Not a lot to say on it other than I just really like him. I like the Highwaymen who use part of the super group with like Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Taylor Jennings, which I really love. And Whistler, like Blade is sort of like, I guess along with Tim Burton, Batman movies, feels like kind of that er superhero movie that kick started this all. And Blade,
Blade's Influence on Superhero Genre
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when you go back to Blade 1 and 2, they're really fucking good.
00:06:56
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like They're really really solid. yeah yeah just Not even like not even, you know, obviously like, you know, Keaton's Batman, Burton's Batman, like ah feel very separate from modern superhero movies, from modern comic book movies. But Blade was such a good movie that they decided to give the X-Men black leather because they loved Blade so much. Like Blade is the literal kicking off point of the modern comic book movie era.
00:07:26
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And I just want to ask Marty, given that like the blade begins in what is effectively a night establishment populated by vampires, would you say that the MCU needs to go back to de club to the
00:07:43
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incredible For those who don't know, back to the club is one of these several bonkers ass line reads that appears in megalopolis, which we will be referencing constantly. It's also, they've officially released that seed and now it's just getting shared around all the time. So I can just put it in you and in the chat. Everyone can watch a single line reading of Adam Driver telling ah Natalie Emmanuel? Yeah, to go back to the club. To the club! You think that damn driver's decision was that Francis Ford Coppola, like, you need to say it like this? What do we think? There's the exchange before that as well, where they just like repeatedly ask the same question and get the same answer, isn't there? When she's at the end of the table and he's like, that you think you think that makes you qualified to judge me? Yeah. And you think that makes you qualified to judge me? Yeah. And you're like, yeah. Did you leave this in there? Did you leave this in there?
00:08:33
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Purposeful, arty farty chaos is lovely. We can, we can see that we have to save megalopolis for the end because once we start talking about it, we will not stop because it is even bleeding into, we're still like in the intro of this damn podcast. I'm
Megapolis' Development and Artistic Vision
00:08:51
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afraid I don't, we need to go there, but I'm afraid like. We'll never come back. We'll put a timer, we'll put a timer on. We can talk about it and if we're not done by the hour, we need to move on.
00:09:01
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we'll we'll We'll give ourselves to the hour and then we have to move on. with it It'll be fine. It'll be fine. What'd you guys take it back but horman do you think? I guess let's start. Let's start. at ah Let's start back at the beginning in Sicily. No, no, no. Uh, Darren, you got to see this movie at the Cannes film festival, correct? That it's from here.
00:09:22
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I did indeed. I was very, very lucky. I got to see like the world premiere, like an unformed opinion of it going in completely blind, the anticipation building and everybody being like, well, obviously look, this is Francis Ford Coppola. He is a master of American cinema. Obviously his legacy is somewhat tarnished. We can talk a little bit about like the scandals around the production of this, ah the videos about him and extras and the the lawsuit that is engaged with with, with variety and stuff like that. But like at the time there was a real sense of this is a man who directed, you know, the seventies is a golden age of American cinema.
00:09:52
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four of the best movies of the 70s. You know, there is always a collective amnesia when it comes to Francis Ford Coppola, where we tend to imagine him as the guy who directed Godfather Part II, unless the guy who directed Jack. um So like there was a real palpable he's making a movie that he cares about. He's making a movie that he loves. He's making a movie that he has wanted to make since 1979, which he first wrote in 1983. Like this is something that's been bubbling and percolating. And he has done the thing which You kind of do have to admire on a conceptual level of like putting all the money into the movie. Selling his winery for, I think, half a billion dollars and investing $120 million dollars of it in this, which, to be clear, means that like the box office performance of this movie is completely irrelevant and doesn't matter. And I think that's kind of great, um regardless of the conversation we're about to have about the movie.
00:10:44
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But
Coppola's Storytelling Style and Ambitions
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in the room at the time, there was a real general energy of like, could this be a masterpiece? Could this be akin to seeing like killers of the flower moon last year can, which was like the boat where it was like, Oh my God, Martin Scorsese somehow made one of his best films in his autumn years after coming off a run of his best films. And I remember like sitting next to this nice old Polish lady who was like covering the festival for like Poland's biggest daily newspaper and just like the frustration radiating off this woman as the movie progressed because it becomes
00:11:21
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very clear very early on that, like, not to spoil the discussion we're about to have, this is a movie that Coppola has been living with for 40 years at this point. He has written and rewritten this story countless times. He has gone back to the beginning and he's inserted new things. He's taken old stuff out and he's recast it. And so you have him kind of getting lost in his own creation, his own monster. To give an illustration of this, one of the central plots of this movie involves a Russian satellite falling to Earth.
00:11:51
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because he first wrote this during the late Cold War. Another point in the middle of the movie has an entire subplot that begins and then quickly disappears involving like Britney Spears and the public scandal over her virginity in the early 2000s because presumably the couple was bashing away at the typewriter in the early 2000s and was like, it's in the movie. They said in it almost again, like pre 9-11, it really got restarted and it was like, oh, this is actually gonna happen. And then after 9-11, he's like, well, I got this whole plot point about the Russian satellite knocking over buildings in Manhattan. We can't do this. And so we just had to go on ice for another 20 years. But the Britney Spears stuff stays. and so like And it becomes like you can tell that the way that I described it coming out of like the screening in Cannes, like stumbling out into the world by eyes like blazed open.
00:12:36
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And again, you're in Cannes, I saw something like 47 movies in 12 days, which is a lot. And then just like having your mouth held open and this poured down your eyeballs in the middle of that. And to be clear, just to preface this, this was not one of my favorite films of the festival. It was somewhere near somewhere near the bottom of the films that I ranked when I saw it at the festival. you But i I have thought about it a lot. And the way that I felt coming out of that room was like, it reminded me of If you remember during the 1990s, you had that wave of Shakespeare adaptations like Romeo and Juliet by Baz Luhrmann, like Titus Andronicus by Julie Taymor, which was like, let's take these stories, move them from, you know, Renaissance Italy or Roman Italy and put them in, Roman Italy there. Or put them in like, you know, New York or Los Angeles or wherever. And here,
00:13:23
Speaker
You could tell me that Shakespeare has a lost play called Megalopolis and Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis is like the ah fifth major cinematic adaptation of Shakespeare's Megalopolis in the past 20 years because like I'm watching it and it really feels like I feel like Coppola expects me to know what the plot of Megalopolis is, so he doesn't need to spend time explaining the plot of Megalopolis to me. So there are moments where characters just die and it's meant to be, oh yeah, that's obviously where that character dies. Don't you know your Megalopolis lore? You're, you're also getting confused because for large stretches of the movie larger than that should be characters are just verbatim repeating Shakespeare. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's it's intentional. Yeah. Yes. Like entire lines of dialogue are not dialogue. It is just quoting a Shakespeare play for seemingly no reason related to what is happening in the plot. But maybe there is some, we have no clue. It's gorgeous.
00:14:24
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Yeah. Like it it is insane. Like it. Yeah. Coppola has lived with this movie for 40 years and he's just poured his brains out on film. Sorry. I have to let the dog out of the room. But yeah, I'm sorry. You guys. Yeah, it's so it's a. ah it's it's It's baffling because on one hand, he gets an incredible ensemble cast, which um is unsurprising considering he's Francis Ford Coppola. So of course, everyone, when people are like, why would Adam Driver do this? And you're like, oh, why would Adam Driver want to work with art one of the greatest American directors of all time on arguably his last movie? Why? wouldn't he? And then you have Aubrey Plaza and Giancarlo Esposito, and you have Dustin Hoffman, who I thought was dead, if I'm gonna be honest. And then you have John Voight, who probably is a little dead. and they dad He's talking about his erection. He's just talking about his boner. like the
00:15:17
Speaker
Oh, we we we will get to that, Marty, like a major plot point in this movie, hinges on the size of Jon Voight's erection. Like, Jack Black was on set during the filming of this. He's not even in the movie because he was like, I just want to see Francis Ford Coppola work. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Walked over from the set of Minecraft. like You guys need to see it from now we're going. We need to carry some of the cinema over from Megalopolis into Minecraft. um Yeah, for as frustrating as it frustrated is, like there are moments of beauty in it that I keep thinking about, just even like staging and and and places that certain scenes were set. There's early on, there's there's a scene where almost all the characters get together and they're on these catwalks that are over a model of the city. yeah I don't know why any of it's happening, but I keep thinking about it and I'm like, that's a really cool, like that feels like if you saw that in a play,
00:16:12
Speaker
Yeah. If you saw that on a stage, you'd be like, Oh, that's really, that's really cool looking. Like that's a, that's a really cool thing. well and You keep, you keep waiting for like the visual metaphor to click and mean something and none of it does. Or when it does,
Artistic Freedom and Narrative Chaos
00:16:27
Speaker
don't worry. The character will just tell you what it means outright.
00:16:30
Speaker
Because yes, like there are scenes like that. There are scenes in which they are on a of ah theoretically floating clock, like in the clouds above the city. But then there are also like hanging girders next to the clock that they are using to walk on, which is gorgeous and meaningless, but also so full of meaning that the characters just tell you like, Oh, we can stop time because stopping time is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It is.
00:16:56
Speaker
This is ah art school fuckery and I love it. yeah Like it is, it's Francis Ford Coppola going, I could have changed cinema, you fuckers. If you just let like, this is, this is the thing about the movie that I find complicated because obviously Coppola is it again, it's that that contradiction between, you know, a great artist and maybe not a great guy where Coppola obviously there's the scandal around his abuse of the extras on set here. Um, there's the, the whole ongoing thing is about Selva, the guy who directed the creepers creepers movies, who Coppola defended. There's things like his, his,
00:17:30
Speaker
hiring of like John Voight and like Shia LaBeouf and like making Shia LaBeouf and making a point about hiring John Voight and Shia LaBeouf and arguably I guess just enough as well. Like there is this element of like Coppola being a grumpy 80 year old man shaking his fist at the sky and the entire like and As jack said, not a movie that does metaphors, not a movie that does subtext, not a movie that asks you to interpret it. Like the the role of a critic and talking about megalopolis is largely redundant because megalopolis does all of its explaining for itself, but this is an 80 year old Francis Ford Coppola going.
00:18:03
Speaker
I could have changed, well, first of all, I could have changed American cinema, but then you step back, it's like, wait, no, is he arguing he could have changed the course of human history? And it seems like He did change American cinema.
00:18:18
Speaker
like it he did but like i saw yeah He's talking specifically about like the American Zotrope stuff. Like he's the, get that, that, that pregrudgery thing. Again, the the grudge that he's never let go of the thing he's never recovered from, which is like, he took the money that he made from Godfather to and from a whole clips now, and he put it into American Zotrope, his company that was going to like do all this financing and funding of like creative projects from interesting directors, unburdened by the mechanics of capitalism and the studio system.
00:18:48
Speaker
And it obviously just imploded spectacularly in his face because it coincided with the collapse of New Hollywood and the studios consolidating into the modern blockbuster model that basically shut him out and destroyed him. um And like, I get why he's angry about that. And I get why that anger is channeled in into megalopolis. And to be honest, if you direct the Godfather, the Godfather part two, the conversation and apocalypse now, you get the right to stand on a soapbox and say,
00:19:12
Speaker
I could have changed the world, but it is a weird experience to sit in a cinema for two hours and 20 minutes, listening to an 80 year old man make the Phantom Menace shouting, I could have made utopia.
00:19:26
Speaker
but like And that's a part part of that frustrating thing is like, I think yeah it's, it's not out of place to say he is a, ah a generation defining filmmaker. ah He had so much clout. He, why didn't he like, sure. Oh, the studios, whatever. You could have made any movie at any time. Francis Ford Coppola. Why are you so upset?
00:19:52
Speaker
It is shocking to me that this is what he is putting up there on his pedestal as his career defining movement, his career defining moment when actors can't get line reads correct. yeah Well, that's not exaggerating to be clear. There are clearly flubbed lines in the finished version of the movie. Sorry, Jack. And know much like the Star Wars prequels, it's actors who we've seen incredible in other movies. So you're like, OK, this isn't because this actor is bad. You know, this is this is something else is going on here. And if it's
Coppola's Themes and Critical Reception
00:20:27
Speaker
purposeful, which maybe it is, I don't know what the purpose is. Like, I don't I don't glean anything from that.
00:20:34
Speaker
is Shocking, shocking, shocking. This is, yeah as someone who, you know, grew up around a lot of people going to film school, I have seen many senior theses in my time. They are all garbage. They are all wankery.
00:20:50
Speaker
Um, they are every single one of them without a doubt, because like, that's when you are at your purest. It's when you have the most ideas, but the least amount of practical filmmaking knowledge. And that's what megalopolis feels like until you remember that Francis Ford Coppola is a generation defining filmmaker who has made phenomenal movies. Hell, even ah so and ah Adequate movies like well well we could talk about Jack adequate movie. that's It's fine. Perfectly fine. Yeah. I don't think that's where you went. It's not like the rainmaker three stars is like, no, Jack, Jack is adequate. That's what Jack was that's who jack was named after the movie check. i was named paper subordin i think i seven ah All I'm saying is this man knows how to make a movie yet.
00:21:41
Speaker
Watching this, I would assume that this was ah you know ah a Las Vegas real estate billionaire's first attempt at directing.
00:21:54
Speaker
I mean, to again, not to defend the movie too much, because this is the thing where it's like, I love the idea of this movie conceptually, which is like unfettered creative freedom from one of our great American masters. I think it gets thornier when you get into the master himself. It gets thornier when you get into the movie itself. um It gets thorny when you get into the idea of like the execution and basic competence of the movie itself. yeah But I do think like there is something interesting in like how Coppola is kind of doing his version of what his old buddy and like his former like mentee George Lucas did with the Star Wars prequels. Like there's a, there was a tweet I saw during the week, which was great, which is like, you know, love Megopolis. Perfect halfway point between my two favorite movies of all time, citizen Kane and star Wars episode three, revenge of the Sith. Like
00:22:44
Speaker
This does feel like Coppola embracing. It has a lot of the digital fakery. A lot of it is CGI. A lot of it is unconvincing CGI. There's a lot of actors acting against green screen or being composite into scenes, but it's also very much informed by like classical cinema. There's a lot of, you know, for example, like Megalopolis, the title of it apply, you know, suggests Metropolis, the Fritz Lang movie from the 1920s. You know, not to jump ahead into Marty's conversation, Marty watched like Bram Stoker's Dracula from the early nineties which i would argue is maybe his fifth best film um and but like Bram Stoker's Dracula is Coppola applying the techniques and crafts of the nineteen fifties using the technology of the nineteen nineties and i think that like
00:23:27
Speaker
If we're being charitable, and I want to say if, and you do not have to be, at the extreme end of charitability, ok I think what I kind of see happening with Megalopolis is Coppola trying to recreate the movies of his own childhood, the movies of the 1930s and kind of the movies he would have watched from the 1920s, and make them using modern digital technology and
Ambition and Artistic Merit of Megalopolis
00:23:54
Speaker
the result does not work to be clear, but I think the result is interesting in that sense, where it's it's this, like, megalopolis is supposedly Coppola's grand vision of the future. And I was so taken by how, while Coppola's like, look at the utopian future we could have, it's also about a guy who can literally stop time. There's that competing paradox of Coppola being, I want to guide us together into this bright and shining future, and also,
00:24:20
Speaker
I want to stop time so there's no progress whatsoever and we can reverse the damage that we've done and I can go back to my happy place. I think like I don't know that it's good but reconciling those things is at least interesting to me. and and i can also so It's also funny again talking about how his his start and stop with this movie being in some form of percolation for almost 50 years is that when you finally see his city of the future it just looks like Singapore.
00:24:47
Speaker
And when you just see look what you just see like the Singapore skyline, you're like, oh, that was the city of the future like 40 years ago. And now there's just cities that look like that.
00:24:58
Speaker
yeah well And I guess like everything I'm saying about this movie negatively, bad movie. This is a bad movie. Please do not misunderstand my absolute love for this movie. I am going to go see it again. I was so engaged by this movie.
00:25:14
Speaker
because of that juxtaposition, that juxtaposition of ah wonderful actors, competent filmmakers, a budget behind it, yet total and utter nonsense happening um to the score of a 1930s movie. Like they need to show the audience that time has passed. So what do they do? They get an old calendar and start tearing off pages of a calendar because of course they do.
00:25:43
Speaker
There's lots of iris fades going on as well and overlay. Like again, just the style of this movie is very much, it is the style of a silent movie, except it looks like a silent movie that was shot inside a Windows screensaver, which is an incredible thing to experience. And like, this is the thing where I don't know how disparaging I am versus how a little bit admirable I am of it, out while still acknowledging, like you said, it's a bad movie.
00:26:08
Speaker
It does not work. I don't think it works at all, but I am yeah fascinated by it. I haven't stopped thinking about it. It's beautiful back to the club. i Back to the club club, which is like the thing is at the end of the day, movies are art and art ah like all movies are there to do is express ideas and feelings via the visual medium, the visual audio medium of the cinema. And I truly believe that Francis Ford Coppola is attempting to express his ideas. They are disjointed. They are maddening. They're stupid. Some of them are so stupid, but he is truly expressing himself. And so, like, as an art enjoyer, I want everyone to watch this movie. And as a bad movie enjoyer, I want everyone to watch this movie. It's also we go to the movies to lead and feel something. Yeah. Thank you, Nicole Kidman. um Yeah. They should just release the trailer with just megalopolis clips that brought in front of heartbreak feels good in a place like this. but And we've talked on on shows over the past couple of years about leaving Deadpool and Wolverine or The Flash and just kind of being like empty and being like, I don't know. Like, what i what do you want from me? Like, I just didn't enjoy it. Whereas with this, you're like, I did not enjoy it, but there's so many reasons why. And I want to talk about those reasons. There's so many reasons why it didn't work, which are fascinating and keep ping ponging in my head. Yes. Yeah. them.
00:27:38
Speaker
So many contradictions and big ideas. And like, yeah like, here's, here's one I want to throw out to the room. Adam Driver, good in this.
00:27:49
Speaker
Couldn't you pass the haircut? ah Like, can I get that he's supposed to look like Caesar, right? yeah yeah put you into that like the name yeah I get it. I get it. I didn't like the haircut. So that was just one point against it. That being said, Adam Driver's physical presence, him being sort of as as tall and and just big and sort of just large as he is, is ah perfect for this role, uh, if, if this role can have a perfect, uh, person. I think like, you know, if you, if you look at the other actors in this movie, uh, they all feel slightly out of place. Like even someone like Aubrey Plaza, who is like, can, can like, wow, platinum to be, we should like, ohnaza it wow, platinum.
00:28:35
Speaker
That's, that's the character's name. That is not, that is not a joke. that is is the name while Last name platinum. Yes. yeah
Notable Performances in Megalopolis
00:28:41
Speaker
Um, uh, who, but, but as an actress, she can very seamlessly, you know, drama and comedy, anything in between, she can play those, uh, you know, uh, high budget roles, low budget roles.
00:28:54
Speaker
And she is very good at playing with a straight face. Here, you could see that she wasn't quite comfortable, the same with Shia LaBeouf, with any of the named actors, any of the the any actor, literally. But then there's Adam Driver.
00:29:10
Speaker
who in a regular movie kind of feels out of place and disjointed here, i i' I'm with you a hundred percent. Darren, this is a, this was made for him where he can roll into, he can roll right out of Shakespeare into saying, you need to go back to the club. And it feels like, yeah, okay. That's something Caesar Adam driver would say. Yeah.
00:29:33
Speaker
Classic Caesar Catalina, am I right? By the way, if they have a party, does that make it a Catalina wine mixer? Oh, the Catalina wine mixer. I know there's there was a lot of casting what-ifs in this movie throughout the years and at a so at some point, Cate Blanchett, Oscar Isaac, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Zendaya we're all like going to be in this movie. And I don't know. ze damp I'm assuming in the Natalie Emmanuel. Yeah. Oscar Isaac in the, uh, uh, Charlotte buff roll, which oh okay I feel like that's an upgrade there. Yeah. Oh yeah. osperizing is That character, which is great. Cause every time I saw a shallow buff, I'm like, what's going on with your eyebrows.
00:30:17
Speaker
yeah that was bad That was a choice. Bring it back. Um, but also, so Darren, when you saw it this movie, one of the, one of the famous talking points is this movie has a scene where in very limited screenings, uh, there is an immersive experience at one moment. Did you get that immersive experience? This is one of those things
Innovative Screening Features
00:30:35
Speaker
where like you talk about it and it sounds like it is magical and wonderful. And it feels like confidence, like pushing the boundaries of cinema forward. And he is.
00:30:44
Speaker
Technically doing as dumb as the live editing thing we talked about. It is exactly as dumb as the live editing thing, does which is there is a point in the movie. And again, I don't know if this movie is spoilable where like a Russian satellite possibly, this is one of the points of discussion we had before we went into this, which was yes. What happens to the Russian satellite that hangs over the city for the first half of the movie? My reading of it was that it fell to earth and it crashed. And then they remodeled the ground into like this city of the future, much like the Memorial park for nine 11. Jack was like, wait, was was it maybe just a vision of what would happen? And he was trying to clear the area. No, I believe it did actually happen later in the movie. So I do have a bit of a superpower where I know what's happening during any movie at any time um ah later in the movie. So Adam Driver has the power to are an editor, Jack. Yes.
00:31:34
Speaker
exactly Adam driver, Cesar Catalina has the power to stop time sometimes for no given and reason. And some people's time doesn't stop because they love each other or some other reason. It doesn't matter. well You're a baby or you're a baby.
00:31:50
Speaker
So, later in the movie, after the satellite crashes and creates a little crater, creating actually the area that Cesar Catalina is going to build Megalopolis in, he ah lets the audience know that he actually has the power to see the future, where he says, time well it's not time stop, time show me the future.
00:32:11
Speaker
And in the future, he sees the satellite crashing. So then if you go back to the beginning of the movie, where he is clearing the area for Megalopolis, all the people are upset ah at him because he cleared them out of their homes. But was he actually saving their lives? Which was Francis Ford Coppola saying, I know the future. Why didn't you trust me to make my movies in the future? you think that's' good Gentrification superpower is what we're getting. That opening scene where they demolished the building in a controlled demolition, then everyone starts coughing and I'm like, this isn't good. I think that was him saying like, oh yeah, in the end it was for your own good I saved your lives.
00:32:53
Speaker
um but to bring it back to the immersive experience. What happens after that moment, there is a press conference yeah and what happened in the version of the movie I saw. And this is apparently, this was the sticking point for Coppola in terms of getting distribution, which I love because he wanted like a distributor who was going to pick up this movie to pay for this to happen in every screening of megalopolis.
00:33:12
Speaker
But anyway, that so he's at the press conference. The screen narrows down. It's a really tight closeup on Adam driver space. The screen kind of like is mostly black. And then a guy with a microphone stand walks down the center of the cinema, then a center aisle plants it in front of the screen and proceeds to read awkwardly from a cue card, asking a question to which Adam driver on the screen responds.
00:33:35
Speaker
So it basically becomes like a theater experience for a single line. I want to be absolutely clear. One single line of the movie becomes a live theater experience. Now, couple has said he originally wanted to work with Amazon to do an AI generated thing where like in your home, you could ask your remote a question and Caesar Catalina would come up with the most appropriate of one of 20 answers to you. Um, and obviously that was not a runner. Um, now the line is just dubbed in most versions of the movie, but you can pay a premium and go see it in IMAX and get the full immersive experience of Megalopolis with full doing a lot of heavy lifting there. I think, but it is fascinating because it is like the live editing, a thing where you can see couple of having this big idea of like, I am going to push the medium board. I'm going to do something nobody's ever seen before.
00:34:24
Speaker
But because it's born of so much compromise, it ends up being a single line that you could easily cut from the movie or dub over into the movie, and it would make no difference whatsoever. Except if you just see it normally. it Again, the frame gets smaller and smaller, and there's a tiny Adam Driver, and a guy asks him a question, and he answers it. And if you don't know that that's what it originally was, you're just gonna be like, why did they make that choice? That was weird. i put at one seed to make so tiny and that he
00:34:56
Speaker
Marty, that choice is no stranger than any other choice made during the movie. Like I saw this yesterday, I saw this on a Monday afternoon, Monday at noon at my local Megaplex with ah five other people in the- Megapackaplex with five other people in the theater, three of which walked out midway through.
00:35:18
Speaker
at a Monday noon showing, which I fucking loved. ah It was just me and a lovely couple sitting in front of me who I think fell asleep during the movie, but it it doesn't matter.
00:35:30
Speaker
ah ah But I love the concept of seeing, like there are five people at the Monday noon showing and we've hired this actor who has one line to read. What do you mean actor? It would just be like a 17 year old kid.
00:35:53
Speaker
Like that was the thing at the Cannes screening. Cause obviously I presume like the proper celebrity like red carpet premiere got like an actual actor, but because it was screening for critics in various other theaters around the yeah palace to sit about, we got some poor volunteer who like, again, when he walked up with the microphone stand and planted it down really seemed like he was worried that the audience was going to get up and tear him limb for limb for interrupting their Francis Ford Coppola movie. You know,
Potential Cult Status and Comparisons
00:36:19
Speaker
love it Yeah, it's love it it's fascinating. One of the the the reactions to to folks on Twitter have been wonderful, especially people who aren't just like, this is terrible. but don't want it like That's uninteresting to me. like People who are actually digging in and being like, this is a mess and here's why. is is that The best description I saw was from a comedian named Mike Drucker who said that it's like the movie is if Hideo Kojima directed the cut scenes in SimCity.
00:36:49
Speaker
Yeah, that's pretty spot on. Yes. Well, and I guess like to me and you know, I know like a lot of obviously I watch a lot of bad movies and I enjoy, I enjoy movies period, whether they are good or bad. I enjoy the, the craft and the art of movie making.
00:37:05
Speaker
And I would much rather see a movie like Megalopolis in which there is a heart and the heart is crusted over and it is full of cholesterol and it is ugly and it's bad, it's bad and it's terrible, but there is heart. They are attempting to say something rather than a thousand Deadpool wolverines in which the corporate churn has just taken over. This is my churn.
00:37:33
Speaker
I am. It looks like I'm rowing a boat, but I'm thinking of a meat grinder like a big grinder. It looks more like a crank than a churn. I guess I'm thinking of a butter churn. You were thinking of a butter churn, but that's this and I can't do that on video. Oh, you did. You just did it. I'm going to be honest. Marty, the crank is the guy who directed the movie.
00:37:51
Speaker
um What i what i I will say about like the discourse around this movie, and it's very similar to what I will say about the discourse around Horizon, which is also not a great movie. Ironically, Hot Take, I think Horizon part one is better than like this movie. I know crazy hot take um I think both are like fine at the absolute maximum but like the idea that the reaction to this is like well you know it's great that these movies are flopping and it's like I would like to live in a world where these movies could flop and it would just be fine like where.
00:38:25
Speaker
You know, somebody like, okay, take away Coppola, forget Coppola because of all the baggage Coppola has. Somebody like Koster, who is like, put in his hours on Yellowstone. He's your dad's favorite actor. He's done the time. He's made movies that have won the best picture Oscar. Like he wants to make a Western and it only costs what, $50 million? dollars That should not be like a make or break moment for modern cinema. That should be just be like some studio executive reaching into their pockets and going, yeah, we found some loose change. And yeah.
00:38:55
Speaker
if we don't make money back on that don't worry drawer number two only cost twenty million dollars to make and that's gonna make at least fifty you know yeah like like it is. Kind of a little bit disheartening that like this movie which i think is a folly in in every sense of the word to be clear i think it is interesting and fascinating i think that there's a lot to talk about i think there are elements of this that i love and admire their elements that i have difficulty with that i keep turning over in my head but i do think it is a folly to be clear but i also like.
00:39:24
Speaker
don't like that this has become a grand statement for the state of modern cinema, where this movie bobbing. is somehow relevant or matters, or is worth talking about where like couple of didn't invest that money to get it back. If couple of wanted to get that money back, he would have invested the full 500 million. This is just, I got nowhere to take it after I'm going, you know, like, um, the Kevin Koster line about is at the horizon, which is like my, my kids will maybe have to have jobs. Like that's the end consequence of this.
00:39:55
Speaker
that maybe my kids will have to work for a living at some point probably in a nice like ivy league firm for six figure salaries but look i'm not that of the year i'm gonna accept that i find it really frustrating that like these movies have become it's great that they're failing for some reason as opposed to like there should be five or six or seven of these a year and some of them will fail and some of them will work you know Absolutely. yeah so what i the sort of the Zooming out a little bit, like what what are some comparable movies to this? Not even in terms of like even the... I guess maybe in terms of the story, but just in terms of like this feeling we have where you're like, what was this? like This is a mess, but a fascinating mess. Because the movie I kept thinking of throughout the whole thing was Richard Kelly's Southland Tales,
00:40:41
Speaker
Like, it feels so much like Southland Tales to me, ah which that kind of put Richard Kelly in director in jail for the rest of his career. To be fair, like, it it isn't just that, because he did go on and he did movies after that. Like, he did The Box after that, if I remember correctly. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, like, I mean, Coplett obviously needs to go and make his version of The Box, which will be about, like, Frank Langella being like, I designed a box, and you guys didn't respect it. The Box could have changed the world. And he's definitely going to keep Frank Langella. No need noting to recast that from old Francis. Yeah, but like the thing about ah like yeah Seth and Tails is interesting as a counterpoint, because like Seth and Tails is a movie that feels so perfectly of its moment, right down to the casting of The Rock and Sarah Michelle Geller and Sean William Scott. Like it is the pulse of like America in that moment, almost to its detriment. Like Justin Timberlake is a major supported character in this movie. Whereas Megalopolis is like weirdly. i picture throwre the wrongs and entertain
00:41:43
Speaker
Pimps don't commit suicide, Marty. The difference between, I think, Megalopolis and Southland Tales is I would make a full-throated argument for Southland Tales. I don't think I would for Megalopolis. Megalopolis needs the graphic novel tie-ins. That's what it needs. at that a yeah That's what ties everything together. And there's one and two of the three-part story of which the film that you're seeing is the third. Who was the Roxy Boxer Santaro? Boxer Santaro. I would compare Megalopolis to the way I felt watching movies before I was ready to understand them.
00:42:27
Speaker
Like, like as as ah as a movie person, you watch a clockwork orange a little too young and you don't quite get it, but you feel like, wait a minute, this is stupid, but oh, does it mean something? And so it makes you feel like, like you know, you watch your first David Lynch film and you're just like, ah, none of this makes sense. What is going on?
00:42:50
Speaker
obviously now I'm old enough to understand that, uh, what Coppola is doing here is stupid. Uh, but it makes me feel like I just don't get it. If that, I don't think, yeah, that's the thing is it's not like, it's a pretty good point of like those movies where it's like, Ooh, this is kind of dense for a 12 year old or whatever. yeah yeah Whereas I just don't, Is there an explanation to all of this? like I would love to like read or watch a video essay that's really like, oh, here's the meaning behind all of this. And I'm just not sure there is, which it there doesn't have to be. like David Lynch is a perfect example of his things don't have meaning behind a lot of it, and that's fine.
00:43:31
Speaker
I think the meaning of it, like to Jack's point, this is not a movie that has subtext. This is a movie about a guy who's like missing his wife, who is a key creative collaborator. like the We haven't even gotten to like talking about like the part of Megalopolis, which is that Caesar is a grieving widower who also possibly like harvested his wife's DNA to make the magic building material that is turned it into the defining architect of New Rome. By the way, the architects in New Rome are like celebrities and politicians all rolled into one. And also there's a whole Randy and subtext we haven't gotten into, but like that's right. They're getting fountainhead up in this bullshit because like really like the plot of the movie is, is it okay to have a new wife? That's like basically it was just stupid.
00:44:19
Speaker
but I like the idea of a megalopolis, a fable, colon. like that Is That is the stuff that couples wear. It's so precisely and personally coupled because obviously Eleanor was this hugely influential creative person and obviously she died like after the movie had been in production.
00:44:42
Speaker
But I think, you know, like as had April, I think just yeah she died right before, right before the can premiere of it. But I think like, as you're getting older and I, I, you we don't know, I don't know the particulars of how she died. I don't know whether it was an illness or whether it was long-term, but you are thinking about like, what is life after my partner? yeah That is, that is arguably all that Christopher Nolan thinks about in his movies. What if my wife died? Wouldn't that be terrible? And like, I think like that is the key to like megalopolis, like he,
00:45:09
Speaker
to Marty's point about like, is there a there there? I think the there is like, Francis is sitting on the couch and acting as both him, you know, patient and psychoanalysts. And the
Coppola's Personal Exploration in Film
00:45:19
Speaker
rest of us just have to sit there and process it, you know? This is a movie that heavily features a narrator. There is a Lawrence Fishburne is just narrating things that are happening as a driver. He's also Caesar Catalina's driver.
00:45:34
Speaker
Right, correct. he He is like the historian figure. ah The characters will just say out loud what they are feeling and what ah explain to the audience what ah the meaning behind the things they are doing. There is no subtext to this movie. Subtext is for cowards. um ah the And which is one of the things that makes this movie kind of brilliant because it just tells you exactly what it is trying to tell you and it's all very stupid.
00:46:06
Speaker
but
00:46:09
Speaker
my guy who hasn't discovered Megalon yet. Oh, we didn't talk about Adam Driver discovered a new element in Megalon that could fix everything. It can build better buildings, but it can also heal your gunshot wound to the eye. Yes. Shout out of to Megalon, by the way. Shout out to Megalon. And guess also to be clear, like he wants the city to be named in honor of the mineral that he discovered as well. like liketanium yeah It's not like it's a subtle it's not like Caesar as like Caesar is Francis Ford Coppola, but it's not like a tender like modest portrayal of the man. He's like, no, I invented a new element. You guys are going to name a city after the thing I discovered. Yes.
00:46:48
Speaker
And so, yeah, it' it's definitely because because and there is no subtext to this movie, a lot of the themes of this movie is why won't everyone listen to me? I'm so smart. Yeah. And that is just true. That is a true. Adam Driver is very smart and everyone should listen to him.
00:47:06
Speaker
But we need to have a reasonable debate, Jack. which We're just looking for a reasonable debate. and i just Which is part of the first, I call this movie stupid, um one, because it is. And two, because like a lot of the themes is like, ah ah yeah they set up, well what they ah something that they tried to set up early on is, ah oh, what's his name? John Esposito, is John Carlos Esposito. John Carlos Esposito.
00:47:29
Speaker
John Carlo Esposito is the mayor, and the mayor is trying to do practical things for the city. He's trying to ah help people and give people jobs and and you know build things in the city that will ah demonstrably help the citizens.
00:47:45
Speaker
And, and, uh, uh, Caesar, oh fuck Catalina, Caesar Catalina, Adam driver says that's stupid. We should all be dreaming about a better world. Who cares about practical things. And I believe we're supposed to be rooting for Adam driver, who is also the villain of the movie. It is so stupid.
00:48:07
Speaker
ah I love it. I love it so much. And I i want everyone to see it and enjoy it. Yeah. And like, that's without getting, again, there's so much in this movie to unpack. There's like a wow platinum, like doming Shayla buff as his aunt. It's an entire sequence that exists in silhouettes, which is not something that I needed to see, but is now implanted on my brain forever. Like and you silhouettes throughout the movie.
00:48:33
Speaker
Yeah. Well, again, we're going back to the silent cinema. Yeah. let we go and And again, the idea of the city coming alive, which is very much like it's it's a living organism. Art is a living creation because as you said, subtext is poor cowards. um like but like It is, it is an old man justifying himself. Like it is an old man taking $120 million dollars of his own money and going, you will sit in a cinema seat and you will bow before me and acknowledge that I was right. I could have saved everything, but you guys wouldn't listen to poor old Francis. I mean, Caesar Catalina and look where you are now.
00:49:12
Speaker
Like if
Modern Art and Audience Reactions
00:49:13
Speaker
you've ever had a conversation with an older person and you've had to just silently listen to them say they they're right all the time and no one listens to their good ideas, imagine that, but you paid for it and it's two and a half hours long. It costs $150 million. dollars yeah there There might not be a movie this century. I'd i want a hearts of darkness style behind the scenes doc more than this. Yes. Yeah. Which I'm imagining.
00:49:41
Speaker
i mean DVDs don't exist anymore, do they? Do they still do behind the scenes featurettes? No, on not as much as they should. yeah and and it's It's just YouTube essays, yeah which I'm waiting for. I want to do shout out 20th century pictures. The subsidiary that you see, Fox, do actually do really good behind the scenes stuff. The Blu-ray edition of King of the Plan of the Apes has like an entire cut of the movie that is just people.
00:50:03
Speaker
Yeah, it's the naked suits, right? It's just people in the mocap suits. There are no CGI apes, just people in mocap suits. It's incredible. Yeah. ah So yeah, I guess like, you know, we, this feels like a wrap up point because we could keep talking about the insane plot points. But at the end of the day, and for me, ah Megalopolis is art. It is pure art. It's that you go to an art museum and you see that piece of modern art that you are sure means something, but it's like a projection of a face on a baby doll with a chair on top of its head. This is a real piece of art of the Milwaukee art museum, by the way.
00:50:42
Speaker
Um, uh, there's a projection of a face on a baby doll and the doll has a chair on its head. And the face says stuff like. Purple. Hatred. Orange. Back to the club. Back to the head actually shakes for that one. Like that. Do that.
00:51:04
Speaker
Eric, you goddamn magician. That is an actual piece of art at the Milwaukee Art Museum. see and That's terrifying. You see a piece of modern art like that and you go, wow, someone is trying to express an idea. It's stupid, but great. Good for them. And that's megalopolis. Enjoy it. Go see it. i You will have an experience.
00:51:28
Speaker
You will definitely see a movie. I like, like, it well yeah oh, wow. It ah looks like Kiel Brenner. It's blinking. it Yes. There's a face projected on the doll. It looks like it's in pain. Yes. That's part of the art. Is it okay? Has anyone ever tried removing the chair so that the guy doesn't have a chair on his head? They really are. They really are. Maybe it's been a better part of your decade. Everyone in Milwaukee has just been a bunch of assholes not helping out their neighbor. That's the point of the art exhibition. That's the point of the art!
00:52:00
Speaker
Do you see someone on the ground and they have a chair on their head and they'll come up? Incredible. Yeah, Megalopolis. But definitely one of my most enjoyable movie experiences of the year. Most certainly not one of the best movies of the year, not one of the good movies of the year, but an amazing experience. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.
00:52:22
Speaker
I will say I saw it five months ago and I still regularly think about it which is like I don't even like it not consciously I'm not sitting there going man megalopolis I'll be like sitting down reading something and then back to the club.
00:52:40
Speaker
last Last point before we move on to some super chats and then into all the other stuff we've been watching. ah Do you think this movie over time will get like a critical reappraisal? Do we think this will be a cult classic among certain groups? Like, does it feel like it has that, you know, joie de vivre to it?
00:52:56
Speaker
I hope so. I really hope so. I, I use the wrong French phrase, whatever one of those French phrases. Um, uh, I hope so. I think that this movie has a ton to dissect, um, both in its production and in its story and, and themes. I think, uh, I, I hope I could see this being a regular midnight screener.
00:53:26
Speaker
Uh, it has that vibe to it. Yeah. It does have a bit of a vibe of like, I can see this being a rocky horror picture or a cat's type situation where like megalopolis comes and plays in your town in the full immersive experience. And like people start changing the line of the question that people ask Caesar Catalina and stuff like that. Like I see the potential for this too. And one of the things that I've heard from people who've gone to see it, the audience for this is skewing relatively young, which is also great to see.
00:53:54
Speaker
but Like I was worried that this is Francis Ford Coppola's last film, so it's going to be a bunch of people my age. But like based on what people who have actually got to see her like, no, it's like 20 something zoomers and they're having a great time with it. It's like they're getting to see the guy who made the Godfather make a movie. And it's like, sure, it's not the Godfather, but it feels like it's kind of important to them. So I don't know. Like I do think i if it has a future life, I don't imagine it's going to be on streaming.
00:54:19
Speaker
physical media is dead. It does feel like it could be a cat's thing where it just plays once a year in your favorite like theater and you all like go out it for a midnight screening, get drunk, and what would you throw at the screen? Friginity pledges? like that
00:54:39
Speaker
That's a reference to the movie, by the way. I feel the need to clarify after the fact. That's a reference. I shouldn't have said it, but it's happening to the fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged. Exactly. Paperback copies of the book. You throw them at screens. Oh, man. ah That's great. I was trying to think of food they eat in the movie. Did they eat food in the movie? During the in the club scene, he's got a but thing of grapes and stuff. Oh, OK. Yeah. that was yeah Because if theres there's one movie we're going to talk about that has a very clear ah shellfish and and ah when when I think of the substance, I think of Dennis Quaid peeling the shrimp. bonds yeah i didn't know As a dude who loves shrimp, I saw that scene in the theater and I was like, maybe I don't like shrimp. not i mean I also feel like giving people buckets full of shrimp to throw at the screen is not nice to staff members. Like, I feel like you really hate anyone sitting in the theater. Yeah, no one wants to be sitting about sitting around a ton of shrimps. And I love that that that's where your immersive screening of, like, the subset starts. I really want to know what they're throwing at the screen in the final act, Marty. Yeah.
00:55:38
Speaker
Oh, God. They're throwing the substance at the screen. Yeah. Yeah. There's throwing the substance, the titular substance. Oh, you know what it will be. It'll be like the little suction cup bow and arrows during ah John Voigt's boner scene. During the direction scene, you're right. Yeah. Yeah. Like really cute, small ah bone arrows. I like that. Yeah.
00:55:59
Speaker
Boner arrows. Boner arrows. Boner arrows. I love a boner arrow. ah Okay, before we start talking about the rest of the stuff, we watched a couple of super chats. Rexelius with a $5 don't know. Appreciate your Rexelius. Darren, wife is starting a new career. We want to have kids. We might move to a new state. Today's episode was the hit existential dread I needed. I believe referring to your backdrop.
00:56:26
Speaker
Oh, yes. So you shout out to get to Omar just on the edit on that. Um, yeah and a really bad head cold last week. And I was like, you know, the thunderbolts trailer has a weird, like, what are we even doing vibe to it? Like it's it's a movie about superhero teams, but also the overriding narration is I have no sense of purpose.
00:56:46
Speaker
I am lonely. I am empty inside. I do not feel fulfilled." And I was like, this is a weird vibe for a superhero movie. And then I was like, wait, but this has also been the vibe of not only so many Marvel projects recently, but like the third season of Chucky, the first season of Knuckles, the movie Barbie. And I was like, so let's unpack that. What's going on in in mainstream culture? You guys okay in there?
00:57:13
Speaker
like You guys want to talk about it? is myself And at Omar doing this, we're like, yeah, there's just so much of this. There's just so much pop culture, which is like, remember the thing that you loved as a teenager that was kind of innocent and fun and accessible and just like joy to Viva, a call to adventure. You go out into the world and you find yourself. Well, now we're making the version of that where instead of going out into the world to find yourself, you're working at a used car dealership going, Oh, I've wasted my life.
00:57:40
Speaker
Why am I even doing this? Well, this is the inevitable. This is the inevitable ah path we've been on since I'm going to use ah Darren's turn here of cultural fracking, which is like finally the bottoms falling out a little bit. And we go, Oh, and we've used all the things we love.
00:57:58
Speaker
No, those are our things. yeah i like i do think I don't hammer it as hard as I could in the video because the video doesn't last like an hour, but like there is an element of it being like, why haven't I happy anymore? Why doesn't this thing bring me joy? This used to spark joy, but it doesn't anymore. What is up with that? And you could, if you want, I love that Jack's commitment to the bit, um but i i like I do think you could look at it and you could go, well,
00:58:27
Speaker
I used to love the marvel movies now they feel like an obligation to me why is that and the answer is probably because you were fifteen when they started and you're thirty one now. um But it's easier for you to look at the movies and go no why don't the movies ask what their problem is. ah
00:58:50
Speaker
Absolutely. I love that. ah Lampy with a five pound dono. Thank you so much, Lampy. What made more sense to you, Marty? Megalopolis or the Hideo Kojima Death Stranding 2 event at TGS. ah This weekend, Hideo Kojima had a little 90 minute presentation on Death Stranding 2 at the Tokyo Game Show. I watched it live and ah it turns out it was not translated or subtitled. So it was just 90 minutes in Japanese. Nicholas Winding Refn Refin Winding came out at one point and he was, that was the only English of the entire thing. And he spoke about four words. And so I was like, Oh, I know those words. And then he left. I was like, Oh, well, we're back to Japanese without any translation. Um, I just love the context of like, we're bringing in the guy who did drive. And it's like, what what he is he gonna, it's going to be starring in the, he's one of the main characters of Dash Fandy.
00:59:37
Speaker
But he's not directing the game. No, he's he's not directed the game. He is. He is one of the he is mocapped in one of the one of the main main characters of the game. He's named Hartman. And his thing is when he likes things, he he makes a little heart with his fingers to give him like a like like a Facebook like in real life. Yeah. Do you think that like you could Kojima could get Coppola? George Miller is in the new game.
01:00:00
Speaker
Jesus, Guillermo del Toro was in the first game. yeah Like maybe, maybe as like a cinephile, I should just like develop games. Maybe that's the way to connect with my idols. Like he' it now with jordan pee like he's just yeah he's literally built his career to this point where he's like, I liked That person like I saw him tweeting about how much he like fall out and ah Ella it was her name Ella Purcell opera for now and i oh She's absolutely gonna be in one of his games so like he's gonna get her into a soul-sucking machine where he does a 360 vocab and like he's he's got her um he's already has the indacopola cuz Elle fanning is one of the main characters of ah of That's trending too. She was in one of those I don't know whether it was was a youth without youth sir, but round that like those 2010 Yeah
01:00:45
Speaker
Yeah, those ones we tend to forget. ah And then CSI for the two pound don't know. Thank you so much. Let us not forget the passing of Dame Maggie Smith. Yeah, and that was that was last week. Time to me. so I talked about it on something else. So I'm like, Oh, they had to have been an episode of this. But no, that's not how that works. Yeah. Also said she's great. She's incredible.
01:01:03
Speaker
um now one of the ah but One of the great institutions of like British and arguably American cinema as well. Like she's the ones I think about is like, obviously she got her Oscar. What was the one with the teachers direct? Yeah. Yeah, so obviously for sister act, i had up but like, yeah but she also, she was really good in, damn it. It's the one where she plays the teacher, but I also, she did those two Agatha Christie adaptations, evil under the sun and death in the Nile, which she was great in as well. Like that's the thing about Smith. Smith is an incredibly generous performer where like she works really well in ensembles.
01:01:36
Speaker
where you put her with other actors of her generation or her caliber or people around her and she will just match their energy perfectly. We're like even on Downton Abbey, it was, I think it was Penelope Wilton that she was frequently paired with and the two of them just bounce off each other perfectly. And obviously the Harry Potter movies, the entire faculty is like a generation of British theater actors. the West end, you could tell the West end is empty when they were filming a Harry Potter movie because all the actors had like moved to shoot the film. But yeah, Smith is just an incredible performer and incredibly charming, incredibly charismatic. I would recommend checking out Chacho interviews with her, which are just great. yeah Um, like she's a wonderful conversations. Do you see the, the, um,
01:02:18
Speaker
the the personal assistant, I think talking to Vulture was it where she was like talking about how much she liked cat memes. Like in her later life, she was like, my job was to find like cat images ands and memes and show them to her brain and her favorite one. And you can tell that this person was of a similar generation to to Maggie Smith. Cause she's like, when she was asked, what was her favorite one? She's like, well, it's a bit rude, but I guess she wouldn't mind. There's a picture of a cat with its mouth open and its eyes wide going lesbians eat what?
01:02:52
Speaker
Adorable. Incredible. What an absolute icon. Uh, Maggie Smith won two Oscars, sporting actress for California suite and guest actress for the prime of Miss Jean Brody. Sorry, that's what it was. That's what I was thinking of. Yes.
01:03:07
Speaker
um you she Eric, by the way, got that meme. Good shout, Eric. Eric's incredible. Eric has got that meme before you finished saying it. He just had a meme on standby. You have the ability to say stop and time stops. Time stop. Take me to the club. What a movie. So George Lucas with a two year old don't know. Thank you so much, George Lucas. What say you is Sophia Coppola's best movie.
01:03:34
Speaker
um My favorite is loss in translation. That's the simple answer, but I really like loss in translation. Also paired with her. I think that's a beautiful two sides of a relationship. It's very much the challengers and past lives of its time. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. What's, what's the one that she did? It's on the rocks on the rock, which I know is a bad choice. yeah I will put my hands up and say I am a Sofia Coppola heretic.
01:04:02
Speaker
but I absolutely loved on the rocks, which is the one which is about a young woman who has a difficult relationship with her father and is trying to navigate and mend those bridges as she reaches adulthood because he's an eccentric character who has never really been around at all. Um, I don't know, you know, just a crazy thing for a person to put in a movie. Really? I've had a very charming, I actually found it really warm and really loving. And like, I really liked Murray. I really liked Jones and that. And it felt like it was,
01:04:31
Speaker
couple of gently working through some stuff, like not viciously working through some stuff, not like, you know, angrily working through some issues, but being like, yeah, you know, I mean, I feel like this is something I can put in a movie. um I've had a very charming, I really like that. Not to be confused with somewhere, which is also about a young girl ah ah trying to bond with her famous father. Also, Elle Fanning, I really like somewhere. I also really like that hotel, the Chateau Marmo. So that's it.
01:04:58
Speaker
That's good. Is that the one with the, what's his face? ah north dofff Yes. Why did Norman Reedus come into my head? because you' was like gonna be madede You got blade on got blade on my mind.
01:05:09
Speaker
But with both a door fan to read us. Yeah. Yeah. Dorf and Reedus. Do you like Sofia Coppola check? I have not seen much Sofia Coppola. I did not much care for um lost in translation. Um, uh, and so I kind of got off that path. I remember seeing the Virgin suicides as a young cinephile and loving that. And that might be like, I might've seen that. And then, uh, lost in translation and decided, i I'm out and I'm good.
01:05:39
Speaker
You have that superpower of just being like, well, I'm just I just don't need to say anything else from this director. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I respect that. um I respect that a lot. um Yeah. Sure. You know, I'm sure she's fine. Fine. what Did you see last year's Priscilla?
01:05:54
Speaker
I did. it I really liked Priscilla. yeah um sort Interesting that you had those two movies so close together, the Baz Luhrmann movie and Priscilla. um yeah like Again, I thought it was like Priscilla really worked because it was so small and so intimate and so like precisely about what it was about. And to Jack's point about being a movie without subtext, it is a movie in which Priscilla Presley discovers that the gates of Graceland are a literal physical gauge. And that was like, I am all here for this. I i really like this.
01:06:21
Speaker
And obviously Kelly's body's incredible in it. And yeah, the the the fact that in like six months, she had that Civil War alien Romulus. She's going to be the new Knives Out movie. um Yeah. Real talented. Very fun. Um, okay. Pure Pyro with a two Euro dono. Thank you so much. What did you guys think about mortal engines?
01:06:40
Speaker
What do I mean? That was the- The city? The Walking Cities one? Yeah, Peter Jackson produced, or Hugo Eaving? Is that Hugo Eaving? Yes, yes, yes. I did not see it. Haha. I saw him in theaters and I remember being ah visually impressed and I thought the movie was dumb as rocks. There we go. But it was fun. He's doing a big loud theater.
01:07:00
Speaker
liking the concept better than the execution because like, what better cinematic metaphor than London literally feeding on smaller British towns. But I was also like, this should be a Wachowski's movie. Like that, I was like, I i love this premise, but give it to the Wachowski's and then you have like something glorious. Yeah.
01:07:22
Speaker
Beautiful. ah Okay. We're going to jump back to Super Chats in a little bit. We'll we'll we'll talk about more stuff. We've been watching substance since we've already kind of alluded to the substance. And this is a movie I did unlike Megalopolis. I don't want to spoil too much about this because I think part of the joy of the substance is going in and and being like, what's the substance? And then just being like, Oh God.
01:07:42
Speaker
So it is it is a a body horror movie starring ah Demi Moore and Margot Qualley and with ah a small small role by ah Dennis Quaid. And it is, Darren, you wrote about this actually brilliantly just early this week, so why don't you kick off?
01:08:00
Speaker
No, I mean, the substance is my favorite of the movies. I saw a cat. Um, it is a masterpiece. And I also saw like fury wrote a cat. That's right. Furiosa cat as well to put that in perspective, but yeah, it it is a body horror. It's from Corley Faraget. And I apologize to any French listeners for mangling that she's the director of revenge, which is a, an amazing debut.
01:08:19
Speaker
an incredible film. And what Farget does, which is remarkable as a director is she finds the way to make something that is grossly monstrous and disgusting and deeply unsettling grotesque, eerily beautiful, so that it somehow becomes even creepier.
01:08:35
Speaker
where you're like, this is the most beautiful cinematic, a rain shot of bones being broken and snapped and torn through flesh. And the color is just right. The color grading is perfect. The reds are really popping. And you're like, why is this shop beautiful? It is very, very, very effective. The substance is the story of Elizabeth Sparkle played by Demi Moore. Demi Moore is 61 years old. Elizabeth Sparkle has just turned 50.
01:09:00
Speaker
Sparkle is the star, ah because again, this is a French movie, and all celebrities over the age of 50 in the US must be Jane Fonda. She is the star of a series of workout videos, which are tremendously popular. But on her 50th birthday, she's told by Dennis Quaid, her agent named Harvey, because of course he is, um that at 50, it stops. And what it is is left decidedly ambiguous, but seems to be the fuckability or attractiveness of women in Hollywood. And he says this while he is eating,
01:09:29
Speaker
shrimp, peeling shrimp and eating them in the grossest close-up imaginable. And so he is telling her, oh, at 50, it just stops for women. She's like, what stops it? As he looks like fucking ballam eating a fish. When women cease to be physically attractive at the age of 50, he says, licking the goop of like prawns off his face. it is like and And again,
01:09:52
Speaker
It looks gorgeous. The lighting is perfect. yeah Um, like Corley Faraget to her credit, like has a great sense of humor. I love that she posted the, the sexiest movie of the year quote from like IndieWire over a shot of Dennis Quaid with his mouth covered in prawn juice. But basically.
01:10:10
Speaker
this sends sparkle into a spiral of depression she gets into an accident she goes to hospital she meets a young nurse there and the nurse passes her card saying this is the substance you should try it it will revolutionize your life and so she does now i don't know how much we want to talk about it beyond this point but it does get into very graphic body horror territory it does get into this idea of your relationship to your own body And like the core of what body horror is, which is the fear that your body will betray you. like The central fear of every body horror movie from the thing to the blob to the fly is that there is a difference between who you are as a person and what you manifest as as a physical object, what we call body dysmorphia today. And the substance is just like, what if we take that concept and we apply it to the way that we look at women?
01:10:59
Speaker
Um, and like, it is gorgeous. It's that thing that I mentioned about power jet. It is gorgeous and disgusting. Simultaneously Margaret quality. When she appears in the movie and you can see shots there from Eric's kind of like running through the trailer, but like the camera worships quality in this kind of like,
01:11:16
Speaker
Super male gaze like it's like the male gaze if the male was concentrating and squinting really hard and so you end up with this thing that is like ostensibly similar to how movies normally look at women but ends up being like really sickening and disgusting and creepy and it's just this brilliant exploration of like women's bodies, people's bodies, and the way in which your body is not necessarily what you think it is and how you can come to resent it and hate it and how it will like destroy you. It is like just a beautiful piece of cinema. I loved it so much. um Yeah, it's, it's great. Yeah. And that was like what we talked about was just literally, that's like the first 20 minutes. That's the first 20 minutes. Yeah. Yeah.
Dynamic Storytelling and Cast Performances
01:12:00
Speaker
So we won't, we won't go anything else after that because ah almost every 10 minutes I was like, I can't believe they're going. I can't believe you're doing this. I can't believe it's it's wild right up to the end. but The premise of the movie changes every 10 minutes, basically. That's the beauty of it is that like it is it essentially only has three characters, the three that we talked about. It has Margaret Qualley, it has Demi Moore, and it has Harvey ah played by Dennis Quaid. And I think all three actors are phenomenal. I think this is Moore's best performance of her career. like yeah you know In a just world, she gets an Oscar nomination for this. I do not think it'll happen. But again, maybe a light year. um
01:12:34
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Also Margaret quality, one of the stars of dash training. Yeah. And, and again, quality doing just good work. Like a quality was in two of the best movies I saw. I can, she was in this and she was in kinds of kindness and they're not showy Rose. Like this is the thing where she is a Nepo baby. She's the daughter of Andy McDowell, but she's putting in the work where like Margaret quality is not the star of the substance. If you didn't, if I didn't tell you that Margaret quality was in it and Eric wasn't showing your face, you wouldn't know that she was in it because it's been built understandably around Demi Moore. Yeah, but she is so good. Quali is so good here. Yeah, it's phenomenal.
Critique of 'Driveaway Dolls'
01:13:13
Speaker
Did you see Driveaway Dolls earlier this year? I did, and I admire the commitment that Quali showed to that movie. Yeah. No, to me, it just felt like Bad Cohen.
01:13:22
Speaker
i yeah Cohen is like pizza to where I'm like, I yeah and that when i have coman don't regret seeing it. Um, and like ah quality does exactly what is asked of her to the degree that it is asked of her in that movie. Like again, this is the thing where I think quality is a good performer in that. Like she is being selfless. I don't think there's, there's no ego in like drive away dolls where like, if there was ego, you'd be like, can I be maybe 10% less fall corn, leg horn? And you know, what if
01:13:53
Speaker
popcorn leg horn as a lesbian is the basic premise of driveway dolls and it's like that sounds incredible and you're like yeah it does. It's a shame that. It also sounds like a character from megalopolis.
01:14:07
Speaker
Actually that might be one of the one of the. Lesbians need what I say I say. ah No, ah I told you I wanted a kitty cat. You took it out of context now. we we We should say, by the way, like Drive Away Dolls has like one of the two great title changes of the year. It was originally titled in the screenplay and meant to be Drive Away Dykes, I believe. And then also like like Blink twice. You know what Blink twice was supposed to be? Pussy Island. Yeah. yeah
01:14:38
Speaker
We live in a society. A lot of that, I think a lot of that is also just a way to get your script read is by to have ah an evocative title. And you know, like, well, they're going to put this in the fucking Wauwatosa AMC. like if If you remember the the Netflix movie, The Package, a movie ah boner comedy in which someone gets their penis cut off and the main part is about getting their penis back. yeah um a A boner cut off comedy. yeah The title on the screenplay was just the eggplant emoji. That's it.
01:15:13
Speaker
Ah, yeah and that's what got us. There it is. Thank you, Eric. Thank you, Eric. maybe mean i think are Are we, are we like two years away from a movie that is actually titled using emojis? Like I know we have the emoji movie, but like, are we five years away from a movie that is impossible for me to review on radio? Because I have to call it the the eggplant emoji movie.
01:15:35
Speaker
I feel like the problem with the way that sort of like internet lingo evolves at such a quick rate that you put somebody into production and by the time it releases, it's like, oh, that's what fucking old people are doing. Old people are using them. I regret to inform you the eggplant is now racist. Oh no, we've got no eggplant today.
Cannes Premieres and Audience Reactions
01:15:54
Speaker
Uh, so yeah, check out the substance. Uh, very, very graphic, uh, lots of body horror. But, um, if you go to a, uh, my, my screening, I went late at night and folks were just hooting, hooting, hollering. I'm very much looking forward to the substance. Yeah. Oh, like again, seeing it a can at Canada midnight screening at its premiere, nobody knowing what it was going in except people who had seen like revenge, having a vibe that it was going to be graphic, like it is it was incredible to watch that in the room. And like, there are critics there who are yeah sometimes a little bit cliche movie critics or like the ad don ego stuff. But like so much of the room was just like, this is the most incredible thing we have ever seen. yeah And like it it is perfect programming after you've come out of like four straight hours of like Eastern European movies about like human suffering and existential dread. It's like, no, you're going to watch a body horror from France set in LA. And also it's a cartoon, but it's live action. It's, it's incredible. It is like, a
01:16:51
Speaker
It is just an incredible movie to see with a group of people. think i want No one should take the substance. It's bad. That's a bad call. Is that our sense of the podcast? or we do try yeah this certainlyly If I was in the world of the substance, I would choose not to take the substance. I think it's more important that we have the debate than making any sort of decision. real sister yeah but I also do love the idea that Marty turned down sponsorship from the substance because of principles. It's like, yeah, I would not, we would not promote anything on this podcast. We would not take ourselves. Yeah. It's fair. Yeah. Uh, the other, and then the other big ah Jack, I believe you're the only one who saw a wild robot and I want to talk about that. yes and i'm I'm really excited to see that. Yeah. Just a little rundown, a wild robot.
'Wild Robot' and Animated Film Critiques
01:17:36
Speaker
Okay. Uh, the wild robot is, uh, based off of a children's book, question mark, um, based off of a book. Um, and it is a ah family friendly movie about a a robot who, you know, uh, ends up in the wild without any human interference and ends up kind of, uh, you know, ah going native with the animals there as they have to help a young Gosling of ah flies. The basic story of it. Absolutely gorgeous animation. ah
01:18:07
Speaker
ah Now, this is when you said that this was on the shortlist for best picture, and then you said, it's a slow year, it made sense because to me, ah the animation is gorgeous, the story is fine, if not utterly and criminally pandering.
01:18:26
Speaker
There, ah now I am a parent, and as as ah a parent who worked from home, I took on most of the childcare responsibility. ah But the way this movie panders to the mother, you know, like it's it's one of those like bumper stickers that's like, if your minivan isn't full of puke, are you even a mom? ah You know, like those Facebook posts. I was at the breadneck voice. You my baby mother.
01:18:56
Speaker
yeah i even a wild robot um Yeah. Unless your soccer practice has 18 pair of cleats and two of them have poop stains. yeah Are you ever even a mom? Uh, it's, it's one of those like, I, and I see cleaning up prawn after Dennis Quaid. Are you even a mom?
01:19:15
Speaker
bre You know, and everybody has those people in their lives who are like new parents and are just like, this is exhausting. People think working construction is hard. I'll try being a parent. And ah it's pandering to the point of me rolling my eyes really hard during the movie, as a lot of the dialogue is just between two mother characters going, ain't life rough?
01:19:38
Speaker
Uh, so, uh, to me it was, it was very, uh, eye rolly, but, uh, the story's lovely. Uh, the, the mother, a couple seats down going to see this movie with their children, like, and I saw it with my children too, but the mother going to see it with their younger children was audibly sobbing through almost the entirety of the movie.
01:19:59
Speaker
Amazing. Yes. I love that. I love that so much. Yes. Written and directed by Chris Sanders, who previously you wrote and directed Lilo and Stitch, How to Train Your Dragon. It was like one of the showrunners of Muppet Babies. Oh. which Honestly, shout out to Muppet Babies. Yeah. And this is also as ah I know, maybe i'm I'm open to being proven wrong by the chat. I'm not entirely up to date on on Wild rob Robot because it doesn't open here for another couple of months. But like it is also the last of the current wave of DreamWorks productions, if I'm not mistaken. DreamWorks underwent like massive layoffs and I think it moved overseas and stuff like that. So this is seen as a last hurrah possibly for the studio as it once existed. I may be wrong. we it All Shrek all the time.
01:20:43
Speaker
and we Honestly, it's probably just going to go all Shrek. I mean, it the Shrek five is in development, right? like like Yeah. And so it's like, it is a, it's a gorgeous movie. I really like this art style, you know, very similar to the Puss in boots, uh, spider, you know, if we want to call it the spider verse style where it's, it's definitely not realistic. It's hyper realistic. And they're really leaning into a lot of the animation forward element. So it's gorgeous to look at. It is like,
01:21:10
Speaker
It's emotionally manipulative, ah manipulative in a in a way that it's a little too obvious for me. And I say that as someone who loves Schmaltz, like Mr. Holland's Opus, unironically one of my favorite films because of the high degree of Schmaltz. This took it a little too far in my opinion, but still definitely worth a watch, especially if you're just in the mood to think about all the work your parents did and how much work it takes you as a parent to raise your child and you have to let them go eventually. ah Yeah. oh happening Um, yeah, looking, looking forward to this. Cause I know, uh, when I was researching some of like the, what people think are going to be the best animated feature shortlist, there's the, did you, you saw one or two of my can,
Animated Film Highlights
01:21:54
Speaker
right? Flow was that.
01:21:55
Speaker
flow flow is a masterpiece. I love flow so much flow is basically it's Noah's arc, but there's no Noah. Um, it is basically a bunch of animals that are forced to work together to survive a biblical flood on a boat. Like, as you could see from the picture, there's an adorable Labrador. There's a cat, there's a crane. And obviously they do not speak English. They do not speak any language. And cause that's, you know, we talk about subtext as text. That is what the movie is about. The movie is about working together with people who, with whom you cannot communicate or have no shared frame of reference, but it is just absolutely stunning to look at. It has this kind of lyrical storytelling style. It is absolutely beautiful and gorgeous, and it really moved me. It kind of broke my heart. It was one of those days where it was like 2 p.m. in the afternoon. I'd been up till 2 a.m. the previous morning. I'd been up since 8 a.m. that morning. And just in the middle of the day, I'm like, I'll see the French animated movie. And I'm like,
01:22:46
Speaker
It was so beautiful. It's so beautiful. I love him so much. It really did. I'm like, I just want the cat to be okay. The Labrador didn't do anything to anybody. I'm actually tearing albums up. god I'm I'm really excited to see it. Yeah. So Flow is not, ah it is being released in the US later this fall. I'm really excited for that one. So yeah. I'll try to catch our wild robot in the theaters as well.
01:23:14
Speaker
So what the animated lineup looks like wild robot, uh, inside out to, uh, flow, Moana, Moana too. Yeah. Which was interesting because that was meant to go to streaming, right? It was meant to be like a streaming pilot. And then Disney were like, we would like to make money off this. Yeah. yeah We had no Lin-Manuel Miranda, um, oh songs, which kind of made Moana one. Yeah. Yeah. the Did you see transformers? Speaking of animated movies, did you see transformers one?
01:23:44
Speaker
I did. Did you, Jack? I did not. No, I've seen Transformers none. I've seen all the other Transformers movies. I've seen several Transformers movies.
Transformers and Franchise Reviews
01:23:53
Speaker
I feel really bad because I went to a screening full of Transformers fans and everybody really liked it. And the general vibe around this movie has been everybody loves this movie so much. The reviews are incredibly positive and the box office performance of it in the States, which has not been great. It's been people being like,
01:24:11
Speaker
this is why we don't get good movies and i'm very much in the boat where i am with like the fall guys box office under performance which is like whoa whoa whoa whoa who slow it down i got no beef with this movie but i'm not sure the future of like cinema as a medium or art form depends on transformers but i thought it was like It was very much a classic like animated children's movie, but like before Pixar figured out that you could make them to appeal to adults as well. sure It has a very like clear and central arc. It has a lot of lore. It has a lot of jokes in it because we're worried that the adults might be concerned. We're taking it seriously. It has a lot of celebrity voices like the post nineties kind of Disney Renaissance movies. I think it's fine. Um, I think there are like,
01:24:59
Speaker
It's very heavy on Transformers lore in a way that I didn't realize it was until I got out and started talking to people who know about Transformers lore. And I was like, they were like, so what did you think of Primus? And I'm like, oh, Primus is this character. I'm like, no, Primus isn't a character at all. And I'm like, oh, okay. Well, I misunderstood the core concept of what was going on there then. Are we talking about Primus again? jack Yeah. and John the Fisherman was there and, uh, which character was mud?
01:25:27
Speaker
But like, I think it is perfectly fine. Like it is adequate. um I didn't love it. I'm not going to recommend people go see it. I think it is, it is by default, maybe the second best Transformers film because it understands that it is a cartoon designed to sell toys to kids, which puts it like above most of the other Transformers films, which are like, what if this was also a military recruitment film? And I'm like,
01:25:54
Speaker
he's up on that maybe guys um but yeah is it better than the one where anthony hopkins gets blown up in a different aspect ratio than the rest of the movie See, Marty, when you're talking about Transformers the last night, words like good and bad have no meaning. Like Megalopolis, it's it's transcended beyond that. like I marathoned the Michael Bay Transformers movies and it is like getting punched in the head repeatedly. By the time you get to the last night, you have no sense of like what right or wrong is or what direction is up. You're just like,
01:26:27
Speaker
Man, I really hope the gay robot butler tells Anthony Hopkins how he feels about him before Anthony Hopkins dies because we can't afford to have him in this movie anymore. um Played by Jim Carson, played by Mr. Carson from Downton Abbey, by the way, because when Hollywood comes to call and it's like, you're a butler. Obviously, we've got a robot butler. yeah You're hired. um Yeah. um yeah so one that's ah That's a no from you.
01:26:56
Speaker
that's ah That's a no, unfortunately. I was not a big fan. I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm not. a Despite the fact that I've seen all the Transformers movies, I did not. Maybe I was just a little too young to care about Transformers as a kid. Like my my early action figures were like Ninja Turtles and Star Wars. um So like yeah, I just don't care about ours at all.
01:27:14
Speaker
Yeah, Bumblebee is the good one, and Bumblebee is the one where I'm like, that I would leave on if it was on TV. Bumblebee is like the best case for a Transformers film I have seen, and it reaches the level of, I will not actively reach for the remote when I see it on a TV screen. Yeah. yeah it's the Bumblebee is the movie that feels most like um a Transformers movie, where it's like, oh, a little kid going on an adventure with a car and a robot. That's all we're looking for here.
01:27:42
Speaker
Uh, not even transformers gives a fuck about transformers lore. Like if, if you, uh, I, uh, when my kids were younger, we started rewatching like the original animated transformers and like episode one, it's like the transformers fell to earth. Eight million years later, humans are a thing and it's like, what? What were they doing for that time? They were trapped underground for 8 million years. It's beautiful. Because they don't care. No one cares about Transformers. That's good stuff. Darren, what else have you been watching? Give us the rundown. Give us the 2-1-1. That can't be it. I don't know what that number means. It's 2-1-1, like, you know, in land revenue service. It's like, yeah, it's just like... What? Is the 4-1-1? That's a term, right? 4-1-1 is information. Yeah, 4-1-1 is information.
01:28:31
Speaker
nine one one is emergency services so i'm like scaling backwards and imagine like the one one one must be like you have reached a dial tone um but yes so. I watch the two i want psycho two and psycho three for the first time recently which are the obviously the sequels to um ahlf for alfred alfred hitchcock psycho.
01:28:50
Speaker
So i got there eventually psychote which movies are they a sequel to psycho two surprisingly good i will say actually had a really good time with psycho to made twenty two or twenty three years after the original and is basically like what if we responded to the wave of slasher movies that came out after halloween which are obviously indebted to psycho and it has this wonderful tension of being like norman baits has just been released from a psychiatric hospital You want him to kill somebody, don't you? The reason why you're watching this movie is you as an audience member want to see Norman kill somebody. You want to murder a bunch of people in psycho. It's been 22 years. Like, forget the limitation Marty. Like, look, you've got to move past it at some point. ah Robert LaGia, by the way, plays a social worker and it is great. I love it so much. ah You want a social worker who looks like he could beat your you to a pulp.
01:29:43
Speaker
um It also stars Dennis Franz as the creepy owner of the motel, like he's turned like Bates Motel into a brothel. Cause again, like that's what the movie is about. The movie's about like this CD, like you want to come to Bates Motel where a bunch of people died and we rent rooms by the hour cause it's sleazy and it's cheap and it's trashy. I like you have the the movie being like, but wait, psycho is an institution of American cinema. You can't treat it like this gaudy, like kill dispensing machine. And the entire attention of the movie is like, yes, you can. Um, and I kind of love that. And then psycho three, unfortunately, which is directed by Anthony Perkins himself. That was the condition for him coming back.
01:30:21
Speaker
I did not care for psycho three at all. Psycho three is exactly what you expect a psycho sequel to be, which is just like, and now he stabs people. And by the way, we're going to recreate all the shots to the original film. We're going to replay all the beats of the original film. And you know, just because it is the eighties, there's going to be a football match. It's going to bring a whole bunch of teenagers to stay in the motel for the climax. I really hope Norman Bates doesn't go psycho a third time on us. Yeah. What are the odds?
01:30:48
Speaker
My favorite moment at the end of like, it's light spoiler for psycho three. son doesn't back psycho um I love that there's a moment at the end where the local sheriff is like, we were rooting for you, Norman, you let us down. And it's like, really? It's like, that's where you put all your eggs in that particular basket. I thought, I thought he'd, uh, he'd recovered. I thought he was no longer psycho. I'm feeling psycho and you wouldn't like me when I'm feeling psycho. That's my secret cap. most no it's psycho but like ah without getting too much into it that is the magic of psycho 2 because like
01:31:23
Speaker
Anthony Perkins is like this role ruined my life. I was a yeah young leading man. I was on the trajectory to be one of the finest actors of my generation. I organized murder mysteries with Stephen Sondheim. Like I was just king of the world. And then I got cast in the most important movie ever made or one of the most important movies ever made. And now everybody sees me as a psychopath. And like, I don't want to make this movie. I am being driven to make this movie because I need money and nobody else will give me a job.
01:31:52
Speaker
So you have like, that is the beauty of psycho too, where it's like, I kind of feel bad that I'm watching it. And I kind of feel bad that like Norman Bates is going to go psycho. I like that Ernest goes psycho, but like,
01:32:05
Speaker
but like I also feel bad that Anthony Perkins has been put in a situation where he has been cast and has to reprise this role that destroyed his life and his career. And there's this tension in it, which I think is great. I honestly really do. I will recommend psycho to earnestly psycho three, not so much. And I can't get my hands on psycho four. I've ordered a blue Ray from shout factory. I have not seen it yet in terms of, no, there was a psycho four. Was it made for you?
01:32:31
Speaker
It was made for TV. It is a movie in which and look, again, I have not seen it. So these probably aren't spoilers. But the premise of it is that it is Norman's backstory. But it is a late night radio talk show because it's the 90s in America. um And Norman rings into the late night talk show to explain his life story and his history to the DJ, which is a great way for Anthony Perkins to collect a paycheck while not actually being in the movie.
01:32:58
Speaker
Nice. senior Genius. Genius.
Psycho Sequels Review
01:33:02
Speaker
Cycle Four directed by McCarris, who directed a bunch of the stand miniseries and the shiny, the bad shining miniseries. He was a big TV guy. Um, and like, I think two was directed by Richard Franklin, who was one of Hitchcock's apprentices alongside De Palma. De Palma, I think turned it down. And as we mentioned, three was directed by Perkins. And I think like the direction in three is pretty good, but you can also get a sense of Perkins being like,
01:33:22
Speaker
Now I have to fucking direct this too? Yeah. Like, it's not enough that I have to star in these movies, like... And you for ah folks who tuned in a few weeks ago and might not know, Anthony Perkins' son, Osgood perkins o Perkins, is now a director himself and directed Longlegs, the film about Longlegs. And Longlegs is kind of about like ah your father being Anthony Perkins. It's about having this secret in your household that was kept from you to protect you. and The secret being that like Anthony Perkins was gay.
01:33:52
Speaker
um they be clear not not that he was in psycho. I do love the idea of like Osgood Perkins being dark secret being, well, your father was actually in one of the most influential horror movies ever made, but we never told you about it. done Happy 18th birthday Osgood. I'll go be in quickly. Osgood I believe has a cameo in in psycho too, by the way, as young Norman.
01:34:12
Speaker
In terms of other stuff very quickly, I saw Wolf's, which is on Apple TV+. plus I have already forgotten it. Michael's Clayton. um It's like a movie star movie that doesn't understand how movie stars work. It's very, very strange. never let go I put that ah side by side with the instigators, which also just came to Apple, which is Matt Damon and Casey Affleck, which I thought was more fun.
01:34:33
Speaker
yeah It's like like the two the two lesser ocean boys got together and made a more fun movie. Not as good as any of the ocean movies, but still the better of those two. oh yeah like like The thing about like Michael Clayton is Michael Clayton is about like big ideas about like capitalism and like greed and desire and midlife crisis and anxiety. Whereas Wolf's is about you like Michael Clayton, right? like Michael Clayton's a pretty good movie. That is the entire subtext of Wolf's. it's like we all like michael clayton here right and i'm like i do i don't know that you need two hours to explain it to me in great detail but yes what else i see never let go which is the i also enjoy the work of m night show and that's the movie about like haley barry is raising these two kids in the wilderness she's told them that the evil has infected the world and they have to like have a rope that ties into the house that protects them
01:35:22
Speaker
And it's this big metaphor for being a parent and wanting to keep your children safe while allowing them to wander out of the house and into the wilderness. I think Berry is very, very goodness. I think the movie is gone. So it is like fascinating because you it begins and you're like, Oh, this is like an M. Night Shyamalan movie. And then it runs for about half an hour. Like, Oh, this is like a very specific M. Night Shyamalan movie. And then you get another half hour. and It's like, Oh,
01:35:47
Speaker
This is like that exact M. Night Shyamalan movie I'm thinking of, but he added another twist onto the end of it. Um, it is a fascinating movie. I don't think it works. I don't, I wouldn't wholeheartedly recommend it, but I did, you know, I didn't hate it. I think Barry's very good. I think the direction from an Alexandra, Asia, the guy who did, I think he did crawl a couple of years ago as well. yeah him was Great. There's been no parking on my basement. Hell he yeah and That felt like less of a metaphor movie. I'm gonna be honest um um But yeah, that was I really like to crawl this is okay and then I guess Azrael Which is the Samara weaving like silent movie horror film, which is on shutter. I think in a couple of weeks um it is so great When you typed this movie in the dock, I literally thought it was an animated Batman movie about Israel.
01:36:36
Speaker
I literally did not know this was like a feature length film starring humans. so Eric, incredible. Like the quickest fingers in the business. That's what I assumed it was. Right. yeah not Like switch from like Samara weaving to Jean Paul, like in just incredible time.
01:36:52
Speaker
but yeah this is a distant future where everybody's been raptured except for a select few survivors and the survivors have sworn themselves to silence so it is basically a high concept mad max x movie where characters cannot have dialogue which is a great high concept The execution is fine. It's one of those movies where like, I wish the execution were like 10% better so I could wholeheartedly recommend it. I, that said again, weaving really wonderful performer really liked the idea that she's leaning hard into being a screen queen. Um, and like, it's, it's an enjoyable movie. I don't regret the time I spent with it, but it's not an unqualified rave. It's not the substance it's a rapture and everyone decides it is right afterward it is a biblical rapture. And everyone was like, you know what? Maybe we need to get off Twitter.
01:37:39
Speaker
like it Maybe not everybody needs to hear every thought running through my head at every moment. Maybe they should have tried to have a dialogue. I'm just saying. Thank you, Caesar. you could have a lot conversation And to but to be fair, at the climax of the movie, in a very literal sense, the character Azrael played by Samara Weaving does in fact go back to the club, by which I mean a blunt instrument that she uses to bash people.
01:38:03
Speaker
And then just very very quickly to horror movies to remix prequels etc ah apartment seven eight which is the prequel to rosemary's baby um it's directed by the camera the name but she directed the relic which is the ah metaphor about.
Prequel to 'Rosemary's Baby'
01:38:20
Speaker
um Alzheimer's about an elderly woman with Alzheimer's, which is like very atmospheric, kind of a bummer, but really well made. And this is obviously just a prequel to Rosemary's baby. I had a great time with this. I actually really enjoyed this. It is basically the story of Terry, who is the dancer who lived with, if you've seen Rosemary's baby, there's a supporting character who lives with the creepy elderly couple before Rosemary becomes their object of obsession.
01:38:47
Speaker
And early in the movie, and this is ah not a spoiler because the movie has been out for at this stage. Let me check the calendar here. Uh, 57 years.
01:38:58
Speaker
Terry disappears very quickly from the narrative of Rosemary's baby in a way that is like designed to unsettle you and unnerve you, but also to create mystery and ambiguity. And what I really, really, really, really liked about like Apartment 7A is that it kind of feels like a nice revisionist take, which is, well, what was Terry's deal? What was Terry up to? What was her agency? What would a story about this woman be like if we told it from 2024?
01:39:25
Speaker
And I think that if you're going to do something like this, that's the right angle to take with it. So if there has to be a Rosemary's baby prequel, and I don't know that there is, um, I think that like this is as good as it gets. Uh, and then Salem slot, which is Marty fine. Yeah, it is.
Salem's Lot Film Adaptation
01:39:41
Speaker
It is fine. Like it is.
01:39:43
Speaker
from, I think it's a Gary Dauberman. Um, the guy who he has a bunch of screenwriting credits, a lot, a lot of James Wan stuff, a lot of Warner brothers stuff. yeah He wrote the recent it movies. Um, and I was really excited for this. Have you read Salem's lot Marty? I had, yeah, I'm a big, big Stephen King fan and Salem's lots of one of my favorite Stephen King books. ah Exactly. Jack, have have you read Salem's law? Nope.
01:40:03
Speaker
Okay. Um, what I remember about Salem's lot and it's, I haven't read it since I was a teenager, it was that it's just this beautiful portrait of a town dying, which is like very much like it, like it is about how dairy is rotten to its core and how like this town dies. If there is a monster in the town, but that is a metaphor for the idea of like just small town America withering and dying during like the you know Nixon era, during the Carter era, during the Reagan era. Right.
01:40:27
Speaker
And that is what I loved about Salem's Lot. It's a vampire story where the vampire is a metaphor for sucking the life out of small town America. and What I find frustrating about this movie to get it over with very quickly is that this is a movie about how cool it is to stab vampires with a stake and sometimes they explode and also crucifixes blow. There is no real attempt to explore the subtext or the metaphor that I loved in King's original novel. There are moments where like William Sadler shows up and exposits the entire thematic point of the book, but then he like walks out of the movie and you're like, I feel like we could unpack that a bit more.
01:41:04
Speaker
but what i um What I, what I will, like literally whatever, like William, uh, whatever sort of, um, what's his name? Sorry. William Sadler is on screen. William Sadler is like, this is the subtext of the book, but also we could only afford him for two scenes. Um, everything else in the movie. And I want to be clear.
01:41:24
Speaker
That is all an issue with the movie. That is why I i can't love the movie. i will I wanted the movie, and this is probably a me problem as much as a movie problem. Like, I love Salem's Lough the Novel. What I love about Salem's Lough the Novel is not in Salem Lough the Film. That's it.
01:41:38
Speaker
What I think works really well is that this is a writer making a movie who's like, fuck, I can direct. Like it's like, I have proven that I can write. I've written, like I've adapted it, the unadaptable Stephen King book. I have nothing to prove. And I'm like, what about it? Chapter two, nothing to prove as a writer. So I'm going to put all of my money on proving that I can direct.
01:42:04
Speaker
And he has the same cinematographer as Malignant, the James Wan movie from two years ago. Yes, that is exactly it, Marty. You get it. it is This is a movie that is so vibrant in terms of blues and reds and lights and yellows and vibrant colors. Every shot of this movie looks gorgeous. It looks like a 1980s synth band album cover. There are moments when characters pick up crosses to use against the vampires and those crosses literally glow like they are, you know, magical relics in a video game. There's like fog constantly in the street. There are vampires who like move and appear and are lit by red light from lighting sources that do not exist within the world of the film. And I'm like, this is great fun.
01:42:48
Speaker
I am having a tremendously enjoyable time watching this. I would like love to sit in a crowded cinema with a bunch of horror fans and just watch this movie. Unfortunately, it's going straight to streaming, but I had a good time with it. Like if you go in and you manage your expectations and you're like, I just want a dumb fun horror movie that looks really good and has a number of like really good high concept scenes that like riff on the logic of vampires. Like there's a Not again, I don't want to spoil them too much, but like shadows, for example, like the use of shadows, there are moments where like the sun is setting and the shadows are like moving across the ground. And you have that tension of like, obviously the vampires can't set foot in sunlight, but also you have to stay out of the shadows as like somebody who doesn't want to get bitten by vampires that are just like really good cinematic set pieces. They're really nice visually. They're really intense. I really did like this movie um as much as I have this is not coming to theaters.
01:43:45
Speaker
in October. Like I'm fine with it. Dan date going to max, put it in theaters as well. Like, let me see it. Like I said, the substance about my theater, Hooten and Holleran. I want to go to a late night screening with a bunch of horror heads. Hooten and Holleran. When fucking father Callahan comes on screen. I want Bill Camp fans. I want to be surrounded by my camp ads. I was going to say your campers. Yeah, you're having campuses. I want to be surrounded by them. What do we do?
01:44:12
Speaker
Why is this not theaters? Yeah. Like there's a moment where like Afri Woodard picks up like two tongue decompressors and uses them to make a crucifix. And I'm like, yeah, this is cinema. That was on a large screen and not a small screen. Yeah. um that Those tongue decompressors look like lollipop sticks. it I have no sense of scale. um what Uh, that's funny. Um, cool. Yeah. That's coming to max this weekend, I believe. I believe so. Yeah. i don't say Yeah. Um, there you go. Some stuff to add to your spooky list. Uh, cool. Let's go over some last, last couple of super chats. A real quick before we move on to our last super chats, um, uh, for our, our biweekly to be fair segment. Oh yeah. Yeah. i don't even know
01:44:57
Speaker
and This is a big one here. This Friday, ah the fourth, you know, what's coming to to be hundreds of beavers oh fuck out of here. You did it. We did Joe.
01:45:10
Speaker
Hundreds. So if you no longer have to pay to watch hundreds of beavers, go watch it on to be this Friday, the fourth. It is coming to to be. Oh, it's, it's a ah to be fair miracle. This is truly this is like Christmas. I really do think that you made that happen. Jack, like it it is like the you the cosmos has aligned and brought these two things together. These two trains of like culture. I love it. I'm here for it. Uh, so that is a, this a biweekly to be fair segment. Uh, watch hundreds of beavers this Friday, as long as to be as available in your country. Sorry, Eric, someday to be someday to be woke up. Uh, hell yeah. That is a, that is wonderful to be will be to be will be movie.
01:45:57
Speaker
What movie just different companies? That's a different gus that the yeah that's that's a different company, Marty. i' like sorry Too many Oobies. Too many Oobies out there. A lot of Oobies. CSI Freak with a 10 pound. Oh, no. Thank you so much. CSI Freak. a Random question. If you could choose any fictional president from film or TV to run America, who would you choose and why?
01:46:21
Speaker
Dumb answer is President Bartlett. As a dumb answer, like my dumb bleeding heart liberal answer is like, that's when things could have been good. Because he's one of the few liberals who actually got stuff done. Yeah. I mean, like, I feel like, is it Chris Rock from executive? What's, what's that one? Head of chief of state or head of state? Head of state feels like a candidate. Michael Douglas from the American president. Dave from Dave also feels like a candidate. Yeah. Harrison Ford from air force one.
01:46:49
Speaker
I mean, my God, even Charles Grodin figured out taxes. He, they figured out how to fix taxes just over pizza one night. It was great. I love Rob Rayner so much. Um, like I get like that incredible streak Rayner has like up until is it Hudson Hulk is that, or is North it's North. The one that wasn't at North yet. Um, sorry, forgot which terrible Bruce Willis movie I was thinking of.
01:47:15
Speaker
what What was the name of Terry Cruz's president? and ahmoracy yeah yeah President There you go. Which is just way too realistic now. The joke doesn't work anymore because it makes me sad. yeah There you go. A lot of good presidents to have. um We have Bill Paulman at Independence Day. That'd be good too.
01:47:35
Speaker
Shout out to Sarah George Lucas for that one, yep. Yeah, that was that was great. And then Snake of the Garden with a two Euro don't know. Thank you so much. Anyone seen the doc? Nothing like a dame. Is this a Judi Dench doc? I don't know. I don't know. like i so no we Is this the one where all the clips of them talking comes from? Where it's like, yeah, where it's like Judi Dench and Maggie Smith and stuff. Yeah, love right i like yeahkin yeah yeah incredible. There you go. Yeah, a little fun fact. I didn't even know it was real.
01:48:04
Speaker
There you go. Adding it to the queue you. That's how we pronounce queue here. It's got some u's, some e's, some more u's, some more e's. Back to the queue.
01:48:16
Speaker
I said it, when I said that, I added a cube at the end of it. Now I'm thinking of the horror movie cube where the people wake up and they're in a cube. No one wants to go back to the cube. That's a terrible place to wake up. Do not go back to the cube. Electric Peroons is the final. You watched Alien versus Predator, and it's amazing how much of that is just, we saw a cube recently and it's pretty good, right?
01:48:35
Speaker
To be fair, Cube was sick. Cube was great. Cube 2 hypercube? That's a tube cube. What if there was more cube? What if there was a fourth dimension? We should have started the franchise with Square and then we could have gone to Cube.
01:48:53
Speaker
um You know, the prequel, the prequel square. There's always a prequel. Yeah. Uh, electric prunes of the $5 don't know. Thank you so much. Marty, will you be watching billions? Nine hour retrospective of lost season six. Oh my God. I don't know who billions is if I'm going to be honest. And if someone makes a nine hour video on a thing, I usually think they have a head injury. Yeah. I get a little worried about that. That being said, there are some like very long essayists.
01:49:20
Speaker
that I'm like, all right, if, if we got a bomber guy, if we got a Matthew Matosis, I'll go in for this an action button. Nine hours is a lot. I could just rewatch season six. I feel like this is the time to announce my nine hour video essay on transformers the last night as a result of the brain injury that I endured watching the transformers. Nine hours. Like, you know, if ah Four four hours where it's like that's the cap for me like nine hours is is unhinged and like that what that means is
01:49:53
Speaker
ah As much as I love Lost, as much as I think about Lost and want others to enjoy Lost the way I enjoyed Lost, I can't imagine talking about Lost for nine hours, let alone listening to someone else talk about one season of Lost for nine hours. And it's not like you to a couple of folks in chat are talking about like Jenny Nicholson's videos and her four-hour video earlier this year on the Star Wars Hotel, but it was about about so much more than that, and it was phenomenal. I just don't know if...
01:50:21
Speaker
your, your, the collective, your analysis yeah of lost, which I love and have seen several times. Um, but that just seems, can you, can you get an editor or tighten that up a little bit? Can we, can we get it down to four hours? like Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You got to go full horizon. Can you extend it out to be like a full, like four 18 hour, like mini documentary? like know just Yeah. You want to be like four and a half hours each. But sell your vineyard and... Yeah. Fine. Have your kids have to work jobs. Yeah, like just work jobs. There are some YouTubers I watch that just do recaps of every episode of a given series. Yeah. And those are great, but also like each one is, you know, 10 minutes talking about one episode and so I can watch it in chunks. Yeah. Nine hours is too long. That may be too long.
01:51:15
Speaker
i'm not going to click on it even though i love lost and i want to hear more about lost i'm not going to click on that i apologize um probably much
01:51:26
Speaker
You re-watched Lost recently, so you're not doing the twenty-hundred anniversary watch-along. No, no. I'm watching Evil now. You know about Evil? Oh, yeah. I watched the first season. I need to get back on that. It's Millennial X-Files, I'm basically. It's like, what not going to if the X-Files was in the modern day, click on it, even though basically? Yeah. I love Lost Michael Emerson's and I want to hear more about Lost. I'm not going to click on that. I apologize. the bad guy. Speaking of Lost, yeah. Benjamin Linus. Let me tell you, up to no good on this show as well.
01:51:53
Speaker
Really against type, so against type. like Weird that the bug eyed freak has always played a bad guy. i ah He's so good. He is ah one of my favorite characters in Lost. George Lucas with a two-year-old dono. Thank you so much. HBD10 to John Wick. Are two, three, and four any good? I only saw one. yeah Yes, the John Wick movies are are excellent in my mind. Yes. One, two, and four are fantastic, and three is pretty damn good. Yeah. yeah Parabellum features him using a horse as a weapon, so it gets an automatic pass for me. I think three is the weakest of the set, but he kills a dude with a horse, and I'm like, okay.
01:52:31
Speaker
Like I can, I can't, I've got no criticisms, there's no response I can offer to that. Very similar to the Fast and Furious franchise, like the expanding of the universe makes things a little sillier, but I'm also very okay with that. and Yeah. How do we feel about ballerina from the world of John Wick? and I love, uh, Anadarmus. Uh, and I want this movie to be good, but, but, uh, between the troubled production and the fact that I thought the continental was just a,
01:52:58
Speaker
Why did we do this kind of thing? And maybe it was just like swallowing the Gibson pill. I don't know what that I probably should have rephrased swallowing the Gibson pill. Maybe just don't put out Gibson in your things. Yeah.
01:53:11
Speaker
um yeah we Yeah. What's your temperature? at all Following the Gibson pill makes it sound like, yeah, like you went down a YouTube rabbit hole and now have very strong opinions about like right wing an Australian Catholic like theology. I'm just saying I've thought out a whole theater opening weekend for the passion of the Christ too. And I'm really excited. Great.
01:53:32
Speaker
the resurrection of the Christ, right? like that yeah That's where the story has to go. Three days later. yeah Do you think that'll be the scene where people can go up to the camera or go up to the screen and start asking questions? Asking questions of like crazy. We're going to have the big rock, the tomb rock, and they'll have to hire actors to move the rock out of the way to show the movie. This is what happened in the tomb. I asked a question to Jim Caviezel and he told me that vaccines aren't real. So I don't know why. I don't know why Jesus said that. That was weird. of a character
01:54:04
Speaker
Miss Harmony with a $2 don't know. Thank you so much. Damon and Affleck. Love a good Jerry reunion. Jerry, that was one of those movies I saw once felt harrowing. And I was like, I never need to see this again. A great movie. Have you guys seen Jerry? Two dudes just going on a little, going on a little hike. And then they realized they've gotten lost. Jerry with a G. No, oh no I think that was Gus Van Zandt, very experimental. tu so it's ah ah I believe it's Gus Van Zandt, but it's Matt Damon and Casey Affleck, they go on like a hike in the middle of the wilderness, and then it all starts out funny, spoofing and goofing, and then they realize they might've gotten lost, and then they realize, oh, this could be very bad, and it gets bad. um So that ah that ah solidified my stance. Just don't go hiking.
01:54:48
Speaker
yeah The natural outside don't go outside yeah If you want to take a walk walk around the city, you could be like, oh there's a there's the corner. There's a Starbucks. I'm not lost anymore yeah um any time i go inside and think go like oh If I'm going to get lost to where I want there to be food that I can purchase. yeah yeah i don't want to It's much like the substance. i'm like I feel like we could have avoided this whole situation had we just not taken the substance. I feel like youre you're not the protagonist of any movie ever. you like You come across like it's a simple plan, the Sam Raimi movie. There's a crash plane, a bunch of dead bodies, and a whole big bag of money. like None of my business. yeah Not for me. Not for me. I'm not doing this at all.
01:55:28
Speaker
um Easy peasy. Fungus Finder with a $2 Dono. Thank you so much. Y'all should watch Chronologically Lost. I believe that is the experiment where they've re-edited Lost chronologically, so it begins with like the Man in Black and and and Jacob and everything in their backstory, and then goes all the way through. I can't imagine what that would be like.
01:55:49
Speaker
That seems silly. It does, especially since the flashbacks. So tied to the events of the episode in which they occur. Yeah. Yeah. It is one of those things. It's like, again, not to bring us back to megalopolis, but it's like, beats the godfather, the version that he did for like HBO, I think in the eighties or nineties, where he like chronologically ended the godfather, where he like took all of the flashbacks from two and made them like the first part of the movie. And it's really strange watching it because it is conceptually an interesting experiment.
01:56:20
Speaker
And it actually, to be fair to it, does a great job of making the Godfather one even better. But then you have this huge chunk at the end of the movie where Michael is just a bad dude and it's really depressing. Like it's, it's a, it does a very strange thing to the flow of the movie where like part one is like, yeah, veto is great. Love this. It's great going and establishing a community. And man, I really feel invested in veto and the small families bill and he's dead. And now here's Michael. And it's just like,
01:56:45
Speaker
fuck Michael. Like, there's no release from like how crappy Michael is as a human being and into um a lot. Like I'm seeing in the chat now is like, apparently there's a re-edited version of Memento that plays it in chronological order. And it's like, that's a fun experiment, but also it's, it's kind of, you're missing the point.
01:57:08
Speaker
The famous story about like that is that like Nolan to get the movie made agreed to put that on the DVD. oh And he he agreed on the condition that you have to solve a puzzle in order to watch it that is next to impossible because he wanted nobody to watch it. But of course this is the early days of the internet. So they just like, you can go online and see how to unlock the chronological version. But I do love the pettiness of yes, there will be a chronological version of the movie on the DVD, but it will be hidden so nobody can watch it.
01:57:36
Speaker
I missed the DVDs that you'd put in and it'd be like, hey, this is a really artistic menu. How the fuck do I start the movie? yes exactly but but You have to answer 20 questions. 20 questions. I don't know how to begin the movie.
01:57:50
Speaker
You heard the thing that like, again, this is the the weird like space of experimental art in terms of like movie distribution, but like tree of life, Terrence Malick's pitch for like the criteria and Blu-ray of tree of life where he wanted it to play a random movie every time. He wanted it to do like AI generated Twix basically. So like he would have, there would be like 18 hours of footage in the movie and it would just like automatically branch at various points. Oh my Lord. That's great. terrible but Sounds great.
01:58:18
Speaker
And so you could have a version of it that you would never watch the same movie twice. which is incredible, insane. And obviously like criteria and we're like, that is not physically possible. Mr. Malek. Like it's, it's just, it's insane to think that there's a world where that option exists. Is it like the, um, what's the one? Is it there? There's a Steven Soderbergh one as well, which is like in real time. And you can like click which camera you want to watch from. And so the story changes depending on which characters you're following, um, which again, it's just like,
01:58:49
Speaker
art house stuff that you cannot imagine being feasible as mass entertainment, yeah but it's still fascinating to think about. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. Uh, George Lucas with another don't know. Thank you so much. Spooky movie, and movie discussion one. Please talk Dr. Sleep.
01:59:06
Speaker
I really enjoy Dr. Sleep. I'm a huge Shining fan, and I think what Mike Flanagan did with Dr. Sleep, um i I know folks at the time didn't didn't really seem to to jive with it, but um I think it's kind of a beautiful sequel. And the way they handle dealing with those legacy elements instead of using gross, not gross, but instead of using really a kind of phrase that's PG and everything, just recast.
01:59:30
Speaker
and have the actors who give great performances. And then you're like, oh yeah, that does feel like that's the oh that's the bartender or that's ah Jack Nicholson. or yeah And I mean, the thing about that's particularly impressive at Dr. Sleep is that it's an impossible assignment. Like on paper, there is no way this movie should work. Like it is an adaptation of a book written by Stephen King that is in large part about how much he fucking hates the movie of his previous, of the film that he is sequelizing of the book that he's equalizing. But it is also a direct sequel to the movie that Stephen King hates so much that he wrote a sequel to the book that the film is based on.
02:00:03
Speaker
And Dr. Sleep somehow has to appease like both Kubrick and King and both Kubrick fans and King fans and somehow does it. like you I remember watching it in the cinema and being like like, even if I don't love this movie as much as some people do, the fact that Flanagan could do that that he could like walk that tightrope and like have a movie that is not only able to please everybody but is also coherent and thematically rich and like has things to say and is his own movie. It is a Flanagan movie to its core because of course it's about addiction and dependence and cycles of violence and the way that like Flanagan's movies are often about addiction and dependence and cycles of violence. Just i am I am constantly in awe of that movie. I don't love it as much as maybe Marty does but I just I am
02:00:52
Speaker
stunned that it is like functional and amazed that it is good. Also much like Kingdom of Heaven, one of those movies where like the director's cut is just the legitimate way to watch the movie compared to the theatrical cut. Absolutely. It's a three star to a four star for me with the director's cut. Yeah. Uh, Lampe with a two pound dono. Marty, how is blue lock going? It's going great. I'm on episode 15. Blue lock is the anime I'm watching right now. It is a soccer anime about like, it's like a hundred, a hundred Japanese teenagers get put in a facility called blue lock. And the whole goal is to mold them into the world's greatest striker ah but it's so it's kind of like a battle royale except the kids aren't killing each other it's just if you lose you leave and they say you could never play soccer again which I'm like how can you legally enforce that
02:01:37
Speaker
He break their legs, Marty. There's a big dude standing outside the door who just snaps them. Yeah, combination sports anime, battle royale anime, just a bunch of dudes being dudes anime. Yeah, 14 episodes. I'm thoroughly enjoying it. So there you go. And that doesn't understand soccer. Literally don't know the rules. I think you mean football, Marty. I think you mean football. Football. Probably not football. That's not football.
02:02:03
Speaker
you you You cannot call a game where you can hold the ball in your hands football. Oh, I didn't name it. O.J. O.J. named it. I don't think O.J. named football. One, I do not want to talk to O.J. I feel like if I were talking to O.J., that would be far down the list of things that I would talk to O.J. about. yeah Uh, yeah. Or maybe high up. Maybe actually you would be pretty high. Cause I'd be like, I want to talk to the other. Yeah. Um, yeah. And then, uh, if I can find her with a $2 donuts, thank you so much. What do you all mean? The forest is full of food. No. And Jerry, they're like walking in the middle of like a fucking desert. Like it's not even like, well, we're in a forest. We can create some sort of like shade and get some food. And Jerry, there's not in the middle of goddamn nowhere. Eric, did you just Google forest and put up a picture of forest? Yes.
02:02:53
Speaker
yes he blu It's just going to like CGI Matt Damon and Casey Affleck in there and convince you that it's a still from the movie. about marty i see them in a forest right now yeah yeah yeah so myest pro approach is eleven a a great we didn't Oh no, we didn't do it. Sussy guru with a five-year-old don't know. Thank you so much.
02:03:14
Speaker
But at the end of blue lock, it'll have a crack team of players to be sent to the world cup. The credits will show them failing in the group stage. Oh, it turns out that that's not the best way to make a team is this crazy psychological experiment. The best way to make a team be a team and practice together. andmor human Yeah. Um, there you go. Uh,
02:03:37
Speaker
Uh, that's about it. We did it. We did it of an episode like a healthy two hour plus. Listen, this episode, a little bit shorter than Megalopolis. I think Megalopolis was like two hours, 15 hours and five. So I know what we got time to get.
02:03:53
Speaker
go straight to the club. It is 2 p.m. I'm not sure what was open, but we'll see. I don't know that we turned into Night at the Roxbury. That is absolutely what it is. yeah he He bobs his head. It almost like he puts on a slight Jamaican accent just for that, you know, two words. It's amazing. Yeah, it's different than any other line reading in the movie.
02:04:14
Speaker
Does SNL exist in New Rome? But that's a different question. um Of course it does, because it's not just New Rome. It's called America explicitly several times, even though it is not America, it is New Rome. Also, because when he started thinking of this movie, SNL was the biggest thing on TV, so it's got to have it. You have the idea of Francis sitting there in 2000 being like, Night at the Roxbury. That's a reference that will stay. Absolutely. Have you got to see but the SNL movie, by the way, Darren?
02:04:43
Speaker
I am not going to see Saturday night yet. Um, I hear it's fine. Yeah. Sounds like a treat. Again, this is, this is one of those things where like we're talking about the Oscar race being weak. It's because so many of the films are just like dying on their feet. And when I say dying on their feet, they're like solid three star movie. I did not regret spending time with, but I'm not going to like fight internet warriors on the internet about it's like sing, sing, for example. There we go. Nice. Eric, we're not going to talk about that. All right.
02:05:13
Speaker
But yeah. Can we just give the Oscar to Dune? Dune was cool. Yeah. Like that would seem to be the choice. That would be the logical choice. right Twisters. Give it to Twisters. Twisters. Twisters. The brutal. It's like we're in a weird situation where I'm more confident of like the Oscars in 2026 than I am in 2025. We're like, we mentioned Mike Flanagan. Mike Flanagan's going to the Oscars, baby. Um,
02:05:36
Speaker
Because of like life of Chuck, which is the Stephen King adaptation starring Tom Hiddleston won the audience. yeah yeah have ti Which makes it makes it by default a front runner for best picture. But because like Fox searchlight have like two or three movies that they are trying to push already into that, or because all the other studios do, um, basically it's neon, isn't it? Neon ball. Yeah.
02:05:58
Speaker
They've said, basically, we're not going to enter it into this race. It's too, it's too early or too late for us to try and sneak in. So we're we're releasing it next year with an eye on the Oscars in 2026. Oh my God. The future. That is the future. That is like Caesar Catalina could conceive of the life of Chuck. that picture Show me the Oscar winner for 2026 by 2026. We might all be substance.
02:06:24
Speaker
Who knows? Depending on November goes, maybe I will, maybe I will substance.
02:06:31
Speaker
um And then, uh, Lampe with a five pound donor. Thank you so much. And the Oscar for best picture goes to adventure is nice season four. This is right. Absolutely. It's going to happen. You know, we're on stage. I love it. You know, yeah, it's going to happen. Darren, what, what, what should, uh, where can folks find you? What should folks check out other than obviously your wonderful backdrop, which I'm liking to now, uh, on, uh, that one up today on, on Thunderbolts and just the, the existential dread of modern pop culture.
02:07:00
Speaker
permeates modern pop culture, which is so fascinating. And I swear as a fun video, um it's not really a downer. Despite the headline being, why are we still here? I love apathetic Florence Pugh. It's like fucking what? Not going to lie. yeah As a teenage boy, that would have been like kryptonite for me. um But like, yeah, um in terms of stuff, obviously I do comms the website. So every like Friday, every Sunday and every Monday, I'll be writing about like So Salem's lot over the weekend. I will probably for my sins be covering Joker to follow you do. I am seeing it tomorrow night. So I don't know what I will be writing about until ah Marty doesn't know what I'm going to be writing about until he opens up the Google Doc. So I guarantee that surprise. a really nice surprise
02:07:49
Speaker
We'll probably make the Joker one a free one as well. Usually once a month, we make it a free one for everyone. Just to get a little taste, get a little taste of the substance. The substance, I'm about to say. But yeah, so again, you can follow me on Twitter. I should probably also start using Blue Sky, Darren underscore Mooney. Also weird. The second wind is now on Blue Sky, right? Yeah. Yes. I should probably make a Blue Sky as well. We're, yeah, we're, we're, the, the tide has finally shifted, uh, to where even, uh, I want to say even like my non-internet friends are like, what's a blue sky? So it's like, okay, yeah, that's where we're going. All right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, at the point where like Disney stopped advertising on Twitter and you started seeing advertisement for Nazis, that was probably the point where, okay, we'll just head over here. We're currently on the, we're playing violin on the Titanic at the moment, you know? Absolutely.
02:08:41
Speaker
Absolutely. Jack, would you folks check out? and Well, Jack, I agree. I agree. You'll be on on Thursday at noon. That's right. We are in schismo sideshow. We have a sponsor to stream Thursday, noon, central time, schismos, a side show. So I will be there. um A slew of our PAX West videos are now out. ah Both Jesse and I's dungeon mastering panel, our quite insane scavenger hunt. And of course, a video about just kind of like games that Casey Jesse Nick and a little bit of me
02:09:16
Speaker
Uh, saw and enjoyed. Uh, so go watch the packs videos, uh, adventures. Now, of course, always a Saturday, uh, more adventures. Now, uh, the season four is, uh, we are, we are poking at it. It is happening. It's, I mean, obviously it's like we filmed it already, but now we're starting to, you know, see the edits and it's very, very fun. And I think that's all for me this week. people Oh, you're a little, I didn't realize you were a robot.
02:09:46
Speaker
It really matters too, packs a lot in. Ah, son of a bitch, I can't believe I did it. Um, yeah, the normal, yeah, normal streams rest of the week. Yeah. So he tries tomorrow fire link, uh, evening. Uh, we might not be starting Metroid on, uh, Thursday evening because Casey has an incredibly early flight Friday. Like he has to leave for the airport at like three in the morning, which is like gross legal. Maybe we can sneak in another stream somewhere. I know like now that we're done with a shadow of the earth tree, we're going to try a different stream, but we'll figure that out Friday. We have no design devs on Friday. No, no dev heads or anything. And we have some spooky streams planned. Jamait's gonna do his inaugural run of Resident Evil 7. That'll probably be starting next week, so we'll have a lot more info for that. But yeah, for Jack, for Darren, and for Eric, this was the rewind episode number six. Thank you all so much for hanging out, for listening, for watching, for super chatting, and just for sending good vibes our way. We appreciate it. Have a wonderful rest of your Tuesdays, and we'll see y'all later. Bye, everyone. Take care, guys.